


CAESAR OR NOTHING 

Rok Baroy a oe 
ce 

ae 


alee 








THE LIBRARY 
OF 
THE UNIVERSILY. 
OF CALIFORNIA 
LOS ANGELES 













Ein eer 
Ot a 
e 





Beth 


Pag: 















+» 


ret Archive 









ith fun ding from 


soft Corporation 


“a 


(an 
ye 
et 
Estates 
Se hi 
Sr aon 


, 
"aI 
yy fen, 





Fk 





fond 
ue 
Zz) 











ae Slat oe 

hg aot! 5 

z re Rt . 

; ae Ae ae Ey 

Ps r as 

fs mk w aw : os Vee os ' P : - ‘s 

ive.org/details/caesarornothingOObaroiala — 
- x aA a iv u / : F * ~ 








CAESAR OR NOTHING 











————_— 








THE BORZOI 
SPANISH TRANSLATIONS 
THE CABIN [LA BARRACA] 
By V. Blasco Ibéiez 


THE CITY OF THE DISCREET 
By Pio Baroja 


MARTIN RIVAS 
By Alberto Blest-Gana 


THE THREE-CORNERED HAT 
By Pedro A. de Alarcén 


CAESAR OR NOTHING 
By Pio Baroja 














2 








WEIN A EGS 
2% 

Ps CAESAR 

) OR NOTHING 





oe 
PIO BAROJA 


TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH 
By LOUIS HOW 





NEW YORK 
ALFRED A. KNOPF 


COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY 
ALFRED A. KNOPF, Ino. 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


Q >. 
L609 | 
ALS & 


CONTENTS 


PROLOGUE, 9 
PART ONE 
ROME 


I THE PArRIs-VENTIMIGLIA EXPRESS, 21 
II AN EXTRAORDINARY FAMILY, 28 
YF III- Caesar Moncapa, 38 
IV ’ Peorte WuHo Pass Cuose By, 47 
V Tue Apse PRrectiozt1, 53 
VI Tue LittLe INTERESTS OF THE PFOPLE IN A 
ROMAN HOTEL, 59 
VII Tue CoNFMENCES OF THE ABBE PRECIOZI, 66 
VIII Op Pavaces, OLD SALons, O_p LaptEs, 79 
IX New ACQUAINTANCES, 87 
X A BALL, 95 
XI A SouNDING-LINE IN THE DARK Wor Lp, 104 
XII A MEETING ON THE Prncrio, 112 
XIII EstuHetics anp DemMacocy, 120 
XIV New AtTTemMpts, NEw RAMBLES, 130 
XV GrovaNnni Battista, Pacan, 140 
XVI THE Portrait oF A Pope, 147 
XVII Evi Days, 150 
XVIII Carsar Borcia’s Motto, “ Aut César, AUT 
Nrar,” 159 
XIX CaeEsar’s REFLECTIONS, 167 
XX Don CALtxto at SAINT PETER’s, 170 
XXI Don CALIXTO IN THE CaTACoMBs, 180 


1298647 


XXII 
XXIII 
XXIV 


CONTENTS 


‘SENTIMENTALITY AND ARCHEOLOGY, 186 


THE ’SCUTCHEON OF A CHURCH, 190 
Tourist INTERLUDE, 196 


PART TWO 


CASTRO DURO 


ARRIVAL, 203 

Castro Duro, 208 

CAESAR’s LaBours, 215 

THE BOOKSELLER AND THE ANARCHISTS, 224 

THE BANQUET, 229 

UNCLE CHINAMAN, 236 

A Trytnc SCENE, 241 

THE ELECTION, 247 

CarEsar AS Deputy, 252 

PoLiTIcAL LaBours, 259 

THE PITFALL OF SINIGAGLIA, 269 

LOCAL STRUGGLES, 284 

AMPARITO IN ACTION, 290 

INTRANSIGENCE Lost, 297 

“ DRIVELLER ” JUAN AND “ THE CuB-SLuT,” 304 

Pity, A MASK oF CowARDICE, 311 

First Victory, 314 

DECLARATION OF WAR, 317 

THE FIGHT FOR THE ELECTION, 322 

CONFIDENCE, 330 

Our VENERABLE TRADITIONS! Our Hoty PrIn- 
cIPLES! 335 

Finis Girort2 Munpt, 337 


PROLOGUE 


THE AUTHOR HOLDS FORTH IN REGARD TO THE 
CHARACTER OF HIS HERO 


MORE OR LESS TRAN- 
SCENDENTAL DIGRESSIONS 


J hk: individual is the only real thing in nature and in 
life. 

Neither the species, the genus, nor the race, actually 
exists; they are abstractions, terminologies, scientific devices, 
useful as syntheses but not entirely exact. By means of these 
devices we can discuss and compare; they constitute a measure 
for our minds to use, but have no external reality. 

Only the individual exists through himself and for himself. 
I am, I live, is the sole thing a man can affirm. 

The categories and divisions arranged for classification are 
like the series of squares an artist places over a drawing to copy 
it by. The lines of the squares may cut the lines of the sketch; 
but they will cut them, not in reality but only in the artist’s eye. 

In humanity, as in all of nature, the individual is the one 
thing. Only individuality exists in the realm of life and in the 
realm of spirit. 

Individuality is not to be grouped or classified. Individual- 
ity simply cannot fit into a pigeon-hole, and it is all the further 
from fitting if the pigeon-hole is shaped according to an ethical 
principle. Ethics is a poor tailor to clothe the body of reality. 

The ideas of the good, the logical, the just, the consistent, are 
too generic to be completely represented in nature. 

The individual is not logical, or good, or just; nor is he any 
other distinct thing; and this through the force of his own fatal 
actions, through the influence of the deviation in the earth’s 
axis, or for whatsoever other equally amusing cause. Every- 

9 


- 10 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


thing individual is always found mixed, full of absurdities of 
perspective and picturesque contradictions,— contradictions and 
absurdities that shock us, because we insist on submitting indi- 
viduals to principles which are not applicable to them. 

If instead of wearing a cravat and a bowler hat, we wore 
feathers and a ring in our nose, all our moral notions would 
change. 

People of today, remote from nature and nasal rings, live 
in an artificial moral harmony which does not exist except in 
the imagination of those ridiculous priests of optimism who 
preach from the columns of the newspapers. This imaginary 
harmony makes us abhor the contradictions, the incongruities 
of individuality; at least it forces us not to understand them. 

Only when the individual discord ceases, when the attributes 
of an exceptional being are lost, when the mould is spoiled and 
becomes vulgarized and takes on a common character, does it 
obtain the appreciation of the multitude. 

This is logical; the dull must sympathize with the dull; the 
vulgar and usual have to identify themselves with the vulgar 
and usual. 

From a human point of view, perfection in society would be 
something able to safeguard the general interests and at the 
same time to understand individuality; it would give the indi- 
vidual the advantages of work in common and also the most 
absolute liberty; it would multiply the results of his labour and 
would also permit him some privacy. This would be equita- 
ble and satisfactory. 

Our society does not know how to do either of these things; 
it defends certain persons against the masses, because it has 
injustice and privilege as its working system; it does not un- 
derstand individuality, because individuality consists in being 
original, and the original is always a disturbing and revolu- 
tionary element. 

A perfect democracy would be one which, disregarding haz- 
ards of birth, would standardize as far as possible the means 
of livelihood, of education, and even the manner of living, and 
would leave free the intelligence, the will, and the conscience, 


PROLOGUE 11 


so that they might take their proper places, some higher than 
others. Modern democracy, on the contrary, tends to level all 
mentalities, and to impede the predominance of capacity, shad- 
ing everything with an atmosphere of vulgarity. At the same 
time it aids some private interests to take their places higher 
than other private interests. 

A great part of the collective antipathy for individuality pro- 
ceeds from fear. Especially in our Southern countries strong 
individualities have usually been unquiet and tumultuous. 
The superior mob, like the lower ones, does not wish the seeds 
of: Caesars or of Bonapartes to flourish in our territories. 
These mobs pant for a spiritual levelling; for there is no 
more distinction between one man and another than a coloured 
button on the lapel or a title on the calling-card. Such is the 
aspiration of our truly socialist types; other distinctions, like 
valour, energy, virtue, are for the democratic steam-roller, veri- 
table impertinences of nature. 

Spain, which never had a complete social system and has 
unfolded her life and her art by spiritual convulsions, accord- 
ing as men of strength and action have come bursting forth, 
today feels herself ruined in her eruptive life, and longs to com- 
pete with other countries in their love for the commonplace and 
well-regulated and in their abhorrence for individuality. 

In Spain, where the individual and only the individual was 
everything, the collectivist aspirations of other peoples are now 
accepted as indisputable dogmas. ‘Today our country begins 
to offer a brilliant future to the man who can cry up general 
ideas and sentiments, even though these ideas and sentiments 
are at war with the genius of our race. 

It would certainly be a lamentable joke to protest against 
the democratic-bourgeois tendency of the day: what is is, be- 
cause it must be and because its determined moment has come; 
and to rebel against facts is, beyond dispute, childish, 

I merely mention these characteristics of the actual epoch; 
and I point them out to legitimatize this prologue I have writ- 
ten, which, for what I know, may after all give more clearness, 
or may give more obscurity to my book. . . . 


12 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


BROTHER AND SISTER 


Many years ago I was stationed as doctor in a tiny Basque 

town, in Cestona. Sometimes, in summer, while going on my 
rounds among the villages I used to meet on the highway and 
‘on the cross-roads passersby of a miserable aspect, persons with 
liver-complaint who were taking the waters at the neighbouring 
cure. 
These people, with their leather-coloured skin, did not arouse 
any curiosity or interest in me. The middle-class merchant 
or clerk from the big towns is repugnant to me, whether well 
or ill. I would exchange a curt salute with those liverish par- 
ties and go my way on my old nag. 

One afternoon I was sitting in a wild part of the mountain, 
among big birch-trees, when a pair of strangers approached the 
spot where I was. They were not of the jaundiced and dis- 
agreeable type of the valetudinarians. He was a lanky young 
man, smooth-shaven, grave, and melancholy; she, a blond 
woman, most beautiful. 

She was dressed in white and wore a straw hat with large 
flowers; she had a refined and gracious manner, eyes of blue, 
a very dark blue, and flame-coloured hair. 

I surmised that they were a young married couple; but he 
seemed too indifferent to be the husband of so pretty a woman. 
In any event, they were not recently wed. 

He bowed to me, and then said to his companion: 

“ Shall we sit down here? ” 

“Very well.” 

They seated therselves on the half-rotten trunk of a tree. 

“Are you on a trip?” he asked me, noticing my horse 
fastened to a branch. 

“Yes. I am coming back from a visit.” 

“Ah! Are you the town doctor?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And do you live here, in Cestona? ” 

“ Yes, I live here.” 

“ Alone? ” 

“ Quite alone.” 


PROLOGUE 13 


“In an hotel?” 

“‘ No; in that house there down the road. Behold my house; 
that is it.” 

“Tt must be hard to live among so many invalids!” he 
exclaimed. 

“Why?” she asked. “This gentleman may not have the 
same ideas as you.” 

“T believe I have. To my mind, he is right. It is very 
hard to live here.” 

“You can have nobody to talk to. That’s evident.” 

“ Absolutely nobody. Just imagine; there is not a Liberal 
in the town; there are nothing but Carlists and Integrists.” 

** And what has that to do with living contented? ” she asked 
mockingly. 

The woman was enchanting; I looked at her, a bit amazed 
to find her so merry and so coquettish; and she put several 
questions to me about my life and my ideas, with a tinge of 
irony. 

I wanted to show that I was not exactly a farmer, and turn- 
ing the talk to what might be done in a town like that, I threw 
myself into outlining utopian projects, and defending them 
with more warmth than it is reasonable to express in a conversa- 
tion with unknown persons. The woman’s mocking smile 
stirred me up and impelled me to talk. 

“Tt would be worth seeing, what a little town like this would 
be,” I said, indicating the village of Cestona, “ with really 
human life in it, and, above all, without Catholicism. Every 
tenant might be a master in his own home, throughout his life. 
Here you have farm-land that produces two crops, you have 
woods, mountains, and a medicinal spring. The inhabitants 
of Cestona might have the entire produce of the land, the moun- 
tain to supply building-stone and fire-wood, and besides all 
that, the entrance-fees at the springs.” 

“‘ And whose duty would it be to distribute the profits in this 
patriarchal republic? The municipality’s? ” he asked. 

“Of course,” said I. “The municipality could go ahead 
distributing the land, making the roads, cutting out useless 


14 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


middle-men; it could keep clean, inexpensive hotels for the for- 
eigners, and get a good return from them.” 

“And then you would not admit of inheritance, dockox? “d 

“Inheritance? Yes, I would admit of it in regard to things 
produced by one person. I believe one ought to have the right 
to bequeath a picture, a book, a piece of craftsmanship; but not 
land, not a mountain.” 

“Yes; property-right in land is absurd,” he murmured. 
“The one inconvenience that your plan would have,” he added, 
“would be that people from poverty-stricken holes would pour 
into the perfect towns and upset the equilibrium.” 

“Then we should have to restrict the right of citizenship.” 

“But I consider that an injustice. The land should be free 
to all.” 

“ Yes, that’s true.” 

“And religion? None whatever? Like animals,” she said 
ironically. 

“Like animals, and like some illustrious philosophers, dear 
sister,” he replied. ‘“‘ At the turn of a road, among the foliage, 
we would place a marble statue adorned with flowers. Don’t 
you agree, doctor? ” 

“Tt seems to me a very good idea.” 

“ Above all, for me the great thing would be to forget death 
and sorrow a little,” he asserted. ‘‘ Not so many church-bells 
should be heard. I believe that we ought even to suppress the 
maxim about love for one’s neighbour. Make it the duty of 
the state or the municipality to take care of the sick and the 
crippled, and leave men the illusion of living steiedel in a 
healthy world.” 

“Ah! What very ‘ugly ideas you have! ” she pee ae 

“ Yes, that one seems a bit hard to me,” said IL 

We were walking down toward the town by a steep and rocky 
path. It was beginning to grow dusk, the river shone with 
silvery reflections, and the toads broke the silence of the twi- 
light with the sonorous, flute-like note of their croaking. 

On arriving at the highway we said good-bye; they took the 


PROLOGUE 15 


stage, which was passing at that moment in the direction of the 
springs, and I mounted my hack. 


IN MY GARDEN 


I had learned that the brother and sister were named Caesar 
and Laura, that she lived in Italy and was married. 

Some days later, toward evening, they knocked at my house 
door. I let them in, showed them to my garden, and conducted 
them to a deserted summer-house, a few sticks put together, on 
the bank of the river. 

Laura strolled through an orchard, gathered a few apples, 
and then, with her brother’s aid and mine, seated herself on the 
trunk of a tree that leant over the river, and sat there gazing 
at it. 

While she was taking it in, her brother Caesar started to 
talk. Without any preliminary explanation, he talked to me 
about his family, about his life, about his ideas and his politi- 
cal plans. He expressed himself with ease and strength; but 
he had the uneasy expression of a man who is afraid of some- 
thing. 

“T figure,” he said, “that I know what there is to do in 
Spain. I shall be an instrument. It is for that that I am 
training myself. I want to create all my ideas, habits, preju- 
dices, with a view to the rdle I am going to play.” 

“You do not know what Spain is like,” said Laura. “ Life 
is very hard here.” 

“T know that well. There is no social system here, there is 
nothing established; therefore it is easier to create one for one- 
self.” 

“Yes, but some protection is requisite.” 

“ Oh, I will find that.” 

“Where? ” 

“I think those Church people we knew in Rome will do for 
me.” 

“ But you are not a Clerical.” 

“ No.” 


16 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“ And do you want to start your career by deceiving people? ” 

“I cannot choose my means. Politics are like this: doing 
something with nothing, doing a great deal with a little, erect- 
ing a castle on a grain of sand.” 

“And do you, who have so many moral prejudices, wish to 
begin in that way?” 

“Who told you that accepting every means is not moral? ” 

“I don’t understand how it could be,” replied Laura. 

“IT do,” answered her brother. ‘‘ What is individual moral- 
ity today? Almost nothing. It almost doesn’t exist. Indi- 
vidual morality can come to be collective only by contagion, by 
enthusiasm. And such things do not happen nowadays; every 
one has his own morality; but we have not arrived at a scien- 
tific moral code. Years ago notable men accepted the moral 
code of the categoric imperative, in lieu of the moral code based 
on sin; but the categorical imperative is a stoical morality, a 
wise man’s morality which has not the sentimental value neces- 
sary to make it popular.” 

“TI do not understand these things,” she replied, displeased. 

“ The doctor understands me, don’t you? ” he said. 

“ Yes, I believe I do.” 

“ For me,” Caesar went on, “ individual morality consists in 
adapting one’s life to a thought, to a preconceived plan. The 
man who proposes to be a scientist and puts all his powers into 
achieving that, is a moral man, even though he steals and is a 
blackguard in other things.” 

“Then, for you,” I argued, “ morality is might, tenacity; im- 
morality is weakness, cowardice.” 

“Yes, it comes to that. The man capable of feeling him- 
self the instrument of an idea always seems to me moral. Bis- 
marck, for instance, was a moral man.” 

“Tt is a forceful point of view,” said I. 

“Which, as I see, you do not share,” he exclaimed. 

“As things are today, no. For me the idea of morality is 
attached to the idea of pity rather than to the idea of force; 
but I comprehend that pity is destructive.” 

“I believe that you and Caesar,” Laura burst forth, “ by 


PROLOGUE 17 


force of wishing to see things clear, see them more vaguely 
than other people. I can see all this quite simply; it appears 
to me that we call every person moral who behaves well, and 
on the contrary, one that does wicked deeds is called immoral 
and is punished.” — 

“ But you prejudge the question,” exclaimed Caesar; “ you 
take it as settled beforehand. You say, good and evil ex- 
CO 

“ And don’t they exist? ” 

“T don’t know.” 

“So that if they gave you the task of judging mankind, you 
would see no difference between Don Juan Tenorio and Saint 
Francis of Assisi? ” 

“Perhaps it was the saint who had the more pleasure, who 
was the more vicious.” 

“How atrocious! ” 

“No, because the pleasure one has is the criterion, not the 
manner of getting it. As for me, what is called a life of 
pleasure bores me.” 

“ And judging from the little I know of it, it does me too,” 
said I. 

“T see life in general,” he continued, “as something dark, 
gloomy, and unattractive.” 

“Then you gentlemen do not place the devil in this life, 
since this life seems unattractive to you. Where do you find 
him? ” 

“Nowhere, I think,” replied Caesar; “the devil is a stupid 
invention.” 


AT TWILIGHT 

The twilight was beginning. 

“Tt is chilly here by the river,” I said. “ Let us go to the 
house.” 

We went up by a sloping path between pear-trees, and reached 
the vestibule of the house. From afar we heard the sound of the 
stage-coach bells; a headlight gleamed, and we saw it pass Y 
and afterwards disappear among the trees. 


18 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“ What a mistake to ask more of life than it can give! ” sud- 
denly exclaimed Laura. ‘“ The sky, the sun, conversation, love, 
the fields, works of art . . . think of looking on all these as a 
bore, from which one desires to escape through some violent 
occupation, so as to have the satisfaction of not noticing that 
one is alive.” 

“ Because noticing that one is alive is disagreeable,” replied 
her brother. 

“ And why? ” 

“The idea! Why? Because life is not an idyll, not by a 
good deal. We live by killing, destroying everything there is 
around us; we get to be something by ridding ourselves of our 
enemies. We are in a constant struggle.” 

“T don’t see this struggle. Formerly, when men were sav- 
ages, perhaps. . . . But now!” 

“ Now, just the same. The one difference is that the material 
struggle, with the muscles, has been changed to an intellectual 
one, a social one. Nowadays, it is evident, a man does not have 
to hunt the bull or the wild boar in the prairies; he finds their 
dead bodies at the butcher’s. Neither does the modern citizen 
have to knock his rival down to overcome him; nowadays the 
enemy is conquered at the desk, in the factory, in the editor’s 
office, in the laboratory. . . . The struggle is just as infuriated 
and violent as it was in the depths of the forests, only it is 
colder and more courteous in form.” 

*T don’t believe it. You won’t convince me.” 

Laura plucked a branch of white blossoms from a wild-rose 
bush and put it into her bosom. 

“Well, Caesar, let us go to the hotel,” she said; “it is very 
late.” 

“I will escort you a little way,” I suggested. 

We went out on the highway. The night was palpitating as it 
filled itself with stars. Laura hummed Neapolitan songs. We 
walked along a little while without speaking, gazing at Jupiter, 
who shone resplendent. 

“ And you have the conviction that you will succeed? ” I sud- 
denly asked Caesar. 


PROLOGUE 19 


“Yes. More than anything else I have the vocation for being 
an instrument. If I win success, I shall be a great figure; if 
I go to pieces, those who know me will say: ‘He was an up- 
start; he was a thief.’ Or perhaps they may say that I was a 
poor sort, because men who have the ambition to be social forces 
never get an unprejudiced epitaph.” 

“ And what will you do in a practical way, if you succeed? ” 

“‘ Something like what you dream of. And how shall I do it? 
By destroying magnates, by putting an end to the power of the 
rich, subduing the middle-class. . . . I would hand over the 
land to the peasants, I would send delegates to the provinces to 
make hygiene obligatory, and my dictatorship should tear the 
nets of religion, of property, of theocracy .. .” 

“ What nonsense! ” murmured Laura. 

“ My sister doesn’t believe in me,” Caesar exclaimed, smiling. 

“Oh, yes, bambino,” she replied. ‘“ Yes, I believe in you. 
Only, why must you have such silly ambitions? ” 

We were getting near the bath establishment, and when we 
came in front of it we said good-bye. __ 

Laura was starting the next day to Biarritz, and Caesar for 
Madrid. 

We pressed one another’s hands affectionately. 

“* Good-bye! ” 

“ Good-bye, doctor! ” 

“ Good luck! ” 

They went along toward the establishment, and I returned 
home by the highway, envying the energy of that man, who was 
getting himself ready to fight for an ideal. And I thought with 
melancholy of the monotonous life of the little town. 


Bien) Me 
ee AU 





I 
THE PARIS-VENTIMIGLIA EXPRESS 


MARSEILLES! 
HE fast Paris-Ventimiglia train, one of the Grand 
European Expresses, had stopped a moment at Mar- 
seilles. 


It was about seven in the morning of a winter day. The huge 
cars, with their bevelled-glass windows, dripped water from all 
parts; the locomotive puffed, resting from its run, and the bel- 
lows between car and car, like great accordeons, had black drops 
slipping down their corrugations. 

The rails shone; they crossed over one another, and fled into 
the distance until lost to sight. The train windows were shut; 
silence reigned in the station; from time to time there resounded 
a violent hammering on the axles; a curtain here or there was 
raised, and behind the misted glass the dishevelled head of a 
woman appeared. 

In the dining-car a waiter went about preparing the tables 
for breakfast; two or three gentlemen, wrapped in their ulsters, 
their caps pulled down, were seated at the tables by the windows 
and kept yawning. 

At one of the little tables at the end Laura and Caesar had 
installed themselves. 

“ Did you sleep, sister? ” he asked. 

“Yes. I did. Splendidly. And you?” 

“T didn’t. I can’t sleep on the train.” 

“ That’s evident.” 

* T look so bad, eh? ” and Caesar examined himself in one of 
the car mirrors. “I certainly am absurdly pale.” 

“ The weather is just as horrible as ever,” she added. 


They had left a Paris frozen and dark. During the whole 
21 


22 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


night the cold had been most intense. One hadn’t been able to 
put a head outside the car; snow and a furious wind had had 
their own violent way. 

“ When we reach the Mediterranean, it will change,” Laura 
had said. 

It had not; they were on the edge of the sea and the cold con- 
tinued intense and the weather dark. 


HOW BEAUTIFUL! 


The train began its journey again; the houses of Marseilles 
could be seen through the morning haze; the Mediterranean ap- 
peared, greenish, whitish, and fields covered with hoar-frost. 

“What horrid weather! ” exclaimed Laura, shuddering. “I 
dislike the cold more and more all the time.” 

The dining-car waiter came and filled their cups with café- 
au-lait. Laura drew off her gloves and took one of the hot cups — 
between her white hands. 

“Oh, this is comforting! ” she said. 

Caesar began to sip the boiling liquid. 

“ T don’t see how you can stand it. It’s scalding.” 
~ “ That’s the way to get warm,” replied Caesar, undisturbed. 

Laura began to take her coffee by spoonfuls. Just then there 
come into the dining-car a tall blond gentleman and a young, 
charming lady, each smarter than the other. The man bowed 
to Laura with much formality. 

“Who is he? ” asked Caesar. 

“He is the second son of Lord Marchmont, and he has mar- 
ried a Yankee millionairess.” 

“You knew him in Rome? ” 

“No, I knew him at Florence last year, and he paid me at- 
tention rather boldly.” 

“ He is looking at you a lot now.’ 

“ He is capable of thinking that I am off on an adventure with 
you. ” 

“Possibly. She is a magnificent woman.” 

“ Right you are. She is a marvel. She is almost too pretty. 
She shows no character; she has no air of breeding.” 


PARIS-VENTIMIGLIA EXPRESS 23 


“There doesn’t seem to be any great congeniality between 
them.” 
“No, they don’t get on very well. But come along, pay, 
let’s go. So many people are coming in here.” 
Laura got up, and after her, Caesar. As she passed, one 
heard the swish of her silk petticoats. The travellers looked at 
her with admiration. 
“* T believe these people envy me,” said Caesar philosophically. 
“It’s quite possible, bambino,” she responded, laughing. 
_ They entered their compartment. The train was running at 

full speed along the coast. The greenish sea and the cloudy 
sky stretched away and blotted out the horizon. At Toulon the 
bad weather continued; a bit beyond, the sun came out, pallid 
in the fog, circled with a yellowish halo; then the fog dispersed 
rapidly and a brilliant sun made the snow-covered country shine. 

“Oh! How beautiful! ” exclaimed Laura. 

The dense pure snow had packed down. The grape-vines 
broke up this white background symmetrically, like flocks of 
crows settled on the earth; the pines held high their rounds of 
foliage, and the cypresses, stern and slim, stood out very black 
against all the whiteness. 

On passing Hyéres, as the train turned away from the shore, 
running inland, grim snowy mountains began for some while 
to be visible, and the sun vanished among the clouds; but when 
the train came out once more toward the sea, near San Rafael, 
suddenly,— as if a theatrical effect had been arranged,— the 
Mediterranean appeared, blue, flooded with sunshine, full of 
lights and reflections. The sky stretched radiant above the sea, 
without a cloud, without a shred of vapour. 

“How marvellous! How beautiful!’ Laura again ex- 
claimed, contemplating the landscape with emotion. ‘‘ These 
blessed countries where the sun is! ” 

“They have no other drawback, than that the men who 
inhabit them are a trifle vague,” said Caesar. ; 

“ Bah! ” 

The air had grown milder; on the surface of the sea patterns 
of silver foam, formed by the beating of the waves, widened 


24 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


themselves out; the sun’s reflection on the restless waters made 
shining spots and rays, flaming swords that dazzled the eye. 

The train seemed to puff joyfully at submerging itself in this 
bland and voluptuous atmosphere; the palm-trees of Cannes 
came surging up like a promise of felicity, and the Céte d’Azur 
began to show its luminous and splendid beauty. 

Caesar, tired of so much light, took a book from his pocket: 
The Speculator’s Manual of Proudhon, and set to reading it 
attentively and to marking the passages that struck him as in- 
THE ENGLISHMAN AND HIS WIFE 


Laura, when she was not watching the landscape, was look- 
ing at those who came and went in the corridor. 

“The Englishman is lying in wait,” Laura observed. 

“What Englishman? ” asked Caesar. 

“The son of the lord.” 

‘“ Ah, yes.” 

Caesar kept on reading, and Laura continued to watch the 
landscape which hurried by outside the window. After a 
while she exclaimed: 

“O Lord, what hideous things! ” 

“ What things? ” 

“ Those war-ships.” 

Caesar looked where his sister pointed. In a roadstead 
brilliant with sunlight he saw two men-of-war, black and full 
of cannons. 

“ That’s the way one ought to be to face life, armed to the 
teeth,” exclaimed Caesar. 

“Why?” asked Laura. 

“ Because life is hard, and you have to be as hard as it is in 
order to win.” 

“ You don’t consider yourself hard enough? ” 

“ No.” 

“Well, I think you are. You are like those rough, pointed 
rocks on the shore, and I am like the sea... . They throw 
me off and I come back.” 


PARIS-VENTIMIGLIA EXPRESS 25 


“That is because, perhaps, when you get down to it, noth- 
ing makes any real difference to you.” 

“Oh, bambino!” exclaimed Laura, taking Caesar’s hand 
with affectionate irony. ‘‘ You always have to be so cruel to 
your mamma.” 

Caesar burst into laughter, and kept Laura’s hand between 
both of his. 

“The Englishman feels sad looking at us,” he said. “He 
doesn’t dream that I am your brother.” 

“Open the door, I will tell him to come in.” 

Caesar did so, and Laura invited the young Englishman to 
enter. 

“My brother Caesar,” she said, introducing them, “ Archi- 
baldo Marchmont.” 

They both bowed, and Marchmont said to Laura in French: 

“You are very cruel, Marchesa.” 

it3 Why? ”? 

“ Because you run away from us people who admire and 
like you. My wife asked me to present her to you. Would 
you like her to come? ” 

“Oh, no! She mustn’t disturb herself. I will go to her.” 

“ Assuredly not. One moment.” 

Marchmont went out. into the corridor and presented his 
wife to Laura and to Caesar. 

An animated conversation sprang up among them, inter- 
rupted by Laura’s exclamations of delight on passing one or 
another of the wonderful views along the Riviera. 

* You are a Latin, Marchesa, eh?” said Marchmont. 

“ Altogether. This is our sea. Every time I 100k at it, it 
enchants me.” 

“ You are going to stop at Nice?” 

“No, my brother and I are on our way to Rome.” 

“ But Nice will be magnificent. . . .” 

“ Yes, that’s true; but we have made up our minds to go to 
Rome to visit our uncle, the Cardinal.” 

The Englishman made a gesture of annoyance, which did 
not go unperceived by his wife or by Laura. On arriving at 


26 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


Nice, the Englishman and his Yankee wife got out, after 
promising that they would be in Rome before many days. 

Laura and Caesar remained alone and chatted about their 
fellow-travellers. According to Laura, the couple did not get 
along well and they were going to separate. 


IN ITALY 


In the middle of the afternoon they arrived at Ventimiglia 
and changed trains. 

“ Are we in Italy now?” said Caesar. 

“ Yes.” 

“It seems untidier than France.” 

“Yes; but more charming.” 

The train kept stopping at almost all the little towns along 
the route. In a third-class car somebody was playing an 
accordeon. It was Sunday. In the towns they saw people 
in their holiday clothes, gathered in the square and before the 
cafés and the eating-places. On the roads little two-wheeled 
carriages passed quickly by. 

It began to grow dark; in the hamlets situated on the sea- 
shore fishermen were mending their nets. Others were haul- 
ing up the boats to run them on to the beach, and children were 
playing about bare-footed and half-naked. 

The landscape looked like a theatre-scene, the setting for 
a romantic play. They were getting near Genoa, running 
along by beaches. It was growing dark; the sea came right up 
to the track; in the starry, tranquil night only the monotonous 
music of the waves was to be heard. 

Laura was humming Neapolitan songs. Caesar looked at 
the landscape indifferently. 

On reaching Genoa they had supper and changed trains. 

“T am going to lie down awhile,” said Laura. 

“So am I.” 

Laura took off her hat, her white cape, and her jacket. 

“ Good-night, bambino,” she said. 

“ Good-night. Shall I turn down the light?” 

“ As you like.” 


PARIS-VENTIMIGLIA EXPRESS 27 


Caesar turned down the light and stretched himself out. He 
couldn’t sleep in trains and he got deep into a combination 
of fantastical plans and ideas. When they stopped at sta- 
tions and the noise of the moving train was gone from the 
silence of the night, Caesar could hear Laura’s gentle breath- 
ing. 

A little before dawn, Caesar, tired of not sleeping, got up 
and started to take a walk in the corridor. It was raining; 
on the horizon, below the black, starless sky, a vague clarity 
began to appear. Caesar took out his Proudhon book and im- 
mersed himself in it. 

When it began to be day they were already getting near 
Rome. The train was running through a flat, treeless plain 
of swampy aspect, covered with green grass; from time to time 
there was a poor hut, a hay-stack, on the uninhabited, monoton- 
ous stretch. 

The grey sky kept on resolving itself into a rain which, 
at the impulse of gusts of wind, traced oblique lines in the 
air. 

Laura had waked and was in the dressing-room. A little 
later she came out, fresh and hearty, without the least sign of 
fatigue. 

They began to see the yellowish walls of Rome, and certain 
big edifices blackened by the wet. A moment more and the 
train stopped. - 

“It’s not worth the trouble to take a cab,” said Laura. 
“The hotel is here, just a step.” 

They gave a porter orders to attend to the luggage. Laura 
took her brother’s arm, they went out on the Piazza Esedra, 
and entered the hotel. 


II 
AN EXTRAORDINARY FAMILY 


JUAN GUILLEN 


HE Valencian family of Guillén was really fecund in 

‘men of energy and cleverness. It is true that with 

the exception of Father Francisco Guillén and of 
his nephew Juan Fort, none of them became known; but in 
spite of the fact that the members of this family lived in 
obscurity in a humble sphere, they performed deeds of un- 
heard-of valour, daring, and impertinence. 

Juan Guillén, the first of the Guilléns whose memory is pre- 
served, was a highwayman of Villanueva. 

What motives for vengeance Juan Guillén had against the 
Peyr6é family is not known. The old folk of the period, two 
or three who are still alive, always say that these Peyrds de- 
voted themselves to usury; and there is some talk of a certain 
sister of Juan Guillén’s, ruined by one of the Peyrés, whom 
they made disappear from the town. 

Whatever the motive was, the fact is that one day Peyrd, 
the father, and his eldest son were found, full of bullet holes, 
in an orange orchard. 

Juan Guillén was arrested; in court he affirmed his inno- 
cence with great tenacity; but after he had been sentenced to 
ten years’ imprisonment, he said that there were still two 
Peyrés left to kill, whom he would put off until he got out of 
prison. 

As it turned out, Guillén was set free after six years and 
returned to Villanueva. The two threatened Peyrés did their 
utmost to keep away from the revengeful Guillén; but it did 
not work. 

28 


AN EXTRAORDINARY FAMILY 29 


Juan Guillén killed one of the Peyréds while he was water- 
ing the flowers in the balcony of his house. The other took 
refuge in a remote farm-house rented to peasants in his con- 
fidence. This man, who was very crafty, always took great 
precautions about all the people that came there, and never 
forgot to close the doors and windows at night. 

One morning he was found in bed with his head shot to 
pieces by a blunderbuss. No doubt death overtook him while 
he slept. It was said that Guillén had got in down the 
chimney, and going close to where Peyrd lay asleep, had fired 
the blunderbuss right against him. ‘Then he had gone tran- 
quilly out by the door, without anybody’s daring to stop him. 

These two last deaths did not cause Guillén any trouble 
with the law. All the witnesses in the suit testified in his 
favour. When the trial was over, Guillén arranged to stay 
and live tranquilly in Villanueva. 

There was a highwayman in the town, who levied small 
sums on the farms for cleaning young sneak-thieves out of 
the country, and for escorting rich persons when they travelled; 
Guillén requested him to give up his job and he did not offer 
the least resistance. 

Juan Guillén married a peasant-girl, bought a truck-garden 
and a wine-cave, had several children, and was one of the 
most respectable highwaymen in the district. He was the 
terror of the country, particularly to evil-doers; for him there 
were neither scruples nor perils; might was always right; his 
only limitation his blunderbuss. 

To live in a continual state of war seemed to him a natural 
condition. Half in earnest, half in jest, it is told of the truck- 
gardeners of Valencia that the father always says to his wife 
or his daughter, when he is going to have an interview with 
somebody : 

“Bring me my pistol, sweetheart, I am going out to talk to 
a man.” 

To Guillén it seemed indispensable that he should carry his 
blunderbuss when discussing an affair with anybody. 

Juan’s energy did not diminish with age; he kept on being 


30 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


as barbarous cnd brutal as when he was young. His barbarity 
did not prevent his being very fine and polite, because he was 
under the conviction that his life was a well-nigh exemplary 
life. 

TENDER-HEARTED VICENTA 


Of the highwayman’s children, the eldest son studied for the 
priesthood, and the youngest daughter, Vicenta, got ruined. 

“T should prefer to have her a man and in the penitentiary,” 
Guillén used to say. Which was not at all strange, because 
for the highwayman the penitentiary was like a school of deter- 
mination and manhood. 

Vicenta, the highwayman’s youngest daughter, was a blond 
girl, noisy and restless, of a violent character that was proof 
against advice, reprimands, and beatings. 

Vicenta had various beaux, all gentlemen, in spite of her 
father’s opposition and his cane. None of these young gentle- 
men beaux dared to carry the girl off to Valencia, which was 
what she wanted, for fear of the highwayman and his blunder- 
buss. 

So she made arrangements with an old woman, a semi- 
Celestina who turned up in town, and in her company ran off 
to Valencia. | 

The father roared like a wounded lion and swore by all the 
saints in heaven to take a terrible revenge; he went to the 
capital several times with the intention of dragging his 
daughter back home bodily; but he could not find her. 

Vicenta Guillén, who was known in Valencia,— for what 
reason is not evident,—as the Tender-hearted, had her ups 
and her downs, rich lovers and poor, and was distinguished 
by her boldness and her spirit of adventure. It was said of 
her that she had taken part, dressed as a man, in several 
popular disturbances. 


THE MONK 
While the Tender-hearted was leading a life of scandal, her 


brother, Francisco, was studying in the College of the 
Escolapians in the village, and afterwards entered the Semi- 


AN EXTRAORDINARY FAMILY 31 


nary at Tortosa. He did not distinguish himself there by his 
intelligence or by his good conduct; but by force of time and 
recommendations he succeeded in getting ordained and saying 
mass at Villanueva. His father’s restless blood boiled in him: 
he was a rowdy, brutal and quarrelsome. As life in the vil- 
lage was uncomfortable for him, he went to America, ready 
to change his profession. He could not have found wide 
prospects among the laity, for after a few months he took the 
vows, and ten or twelve years later he returned to Spain, the 
Superior of his Order, and went to a monastery in the province 
of Castellon. 

Francisco Guillén had changed his name, and was now 
called Fray José de Calasanz de Villanueva. 

If Fray José de Calasanz, on his return from America, had 
not learned much theology, at any rate he had learned more 
about life than in the early years of his priesthood, and had 
turned into a cunning hypocrite. His passions were of extraor- 
dinary violence, and despite his ability in concealing them, 
he could not altogether hide his underlying barbarity. 

His name figured several times, in a scandalous manner, 
along with the name of a certain farmer’s wife, who was a 
bit weak in the head. 

These pieces of gossip, though they gave him a bad reputa- 
tion with the town people, did not prevent him from advancing 
in his career, for pretty soon, and no one quite knew for 
what reason, he was found to have acquired importance and to 
wield influence of decisive weight, not only in the Order, but 
among the whole clerical element of the city. 

At the same time that Father José de Calasanz was becom- 
ing so successful, the Tender-hearted took to the path of virtue 
and got married at Valencia to the proprietor of a little 
grocery shop in a lane near the market, his name being Antonio 
Fort. 

The Tender-hearted, once married, wrote to her brother to 
get him to make her father forgive her. The monk persuaded 
the old bandit, and the Tender-hearted went to Villanueva to 
receive the paternal pardon. 


32 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


The Tender-hearted, being married, lived an apparently re- 
tired and devout life. Her husband was a poor devil of not 
much weight. The Tender-hearted gave a great impetus to 
the shop. After she began to run the establishment there was 
always a great influx of priests and monks recommended by 
her brother. 

Some of them used to gather in the back-shop toward dusk 
for a tertulia, and it was said that one of the members of the 
tertulia.— a youthful little priest from Murcia,—had an 
understanding with the landlady. 

The priests’ tertulia at Fort’s shop was a well-spring of 
riches and prosperity for the business. The little nuns of 
such-and-such a convent advised the ladies they knew to buy 
chocolate and sweets at Fort’s; the friars of another convent 
gave them an order for sugar or cinnamon, and cash poured 
into the drawer. 

The Tender-hearted had three children: Juan, Jerénimo, 
and Isabel. 

When the two elder were of an age to begin their education, 
Father José de Calasanz made a visit in Valencia. 

Father José had a powerful influence among the clergy, 
and he offered his support to his sister in case she found it 
well to dedicate one of her sons to the church. 

The Tender-hearted, who beginning to have great ambitions, 
considered that of her two sons, Juan, the elder, was the more 
serious and diligent, and she did not vacillate about sacrificing 
him to her ambitions. 


JUAN FORT 


Juan Fort was a boy of energy, very decided, although not 
very intelligent. His uncle, Fray José de Calasanz, when he 
knew him, grew fond of him. Fray José enjoyed great esteem 
in the Order that is called,— nobody knows whether it is in 
irony,— the Seraphic Order. Fray José consulted several 
competent persons and they advised him to send his nephew 
to study outside of Spain. It is known that among her minis- 
ters the Church prefers men without a country. Catholicism 


AN EXTRAORDINARY FAMILY 33 


means universality, and the real Catholic has no other country 
than his religion, no other capital but Rome. 

Juan Fort, snatched from among his comrades and from 
the bosom of his family, went weeping in his uncle’s com- 
pany to France, and entered the convent of Mont-de-Marson 
to pursue his studies. 

In this convent he made his monastic novitiate, and like 
all the individuals of that Order, changed his name, being 
called from then on, Father Vicente de Valencia. 

From Mont-de-Marson he passed to Toulouse, and when two 
years were up, he made a short stay in the monastery where 
his uncle was prior, and went to Rome. 

When the Tender-hearted went to embrace her son, on his 
passage through Valencia, she could see that his affection for 
her had vanished. As happens with nearly all the young 
men that enter a religious Order, Juan Fort felt a deep 
antipathy for his family and for his native town. 

The young Father Vicente de Valencia entered the convent 
of Aracceli at Rome, and continued his studies there. 

This was at the beginning of Leo XIII’s pontificate. At 
that epoch certain naive elements in the Eternal City tried 
to initiate anti-Jesuit politics inside the Church. Liberals and 
Ultramontanists struggled in the darkness, in the periodicals, 
and in the universities. 

It was a phenomenon of this struggle—— which seems para- 
doxical,— that the partisans of tradition were the most liberal, 
and the partisans of Modernism the Ultramontanists. The 
lesser clergy and certain Cardinals felt vaguely liberal, and 
were searching for that something Christian, which, as people 
say, still remains in Catholicism. On the other hand, the 
Congregations, and above all the Jesuits, gave the note of 
radical Ultramontanism. 

The sons of Loyola had solved the culinary problem of 
making a meat-stew without meat; the Jesuits were making 
their Company the most anti-Christian of the Societies in the 
silent partnership. 

In Rome the prime defender of Ultramontanism had been 


34 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


the Abbé Perrone, an eloquent professor, whom the pressure 
of the traditional theologians obliged to read, before giving 
-a lecture, a chapter of Saint Thomas on the point in question. 
Perrone, after offering, with gnashing of teeth, this tribute to 
tradition, used to say proudly: “ And now, let us forget these 
old saws and get along.” 

Father Vicente de Valencia enrolled himself among the sup- 
porters of the Perronean Ultramontanism, and became, as was 
natural, considering his character, a furious authoritarian. 
This sombre man, whose vocation was repugnant to him, who 
had not the least religious feeling, who could perhaps have 
been a good soldier, took a long time to make himself per- 
fectly at home in monastic life, struggled against the chains 
that chafed him, rebelled inwardly, and at last, not only did 
not succeed in breaking his fetters, but even considered them 
his one happiness. 

Little by little he dominated his rebelliousness, and he made 
himself a great worker and a tireless intriguer. 

The fruits of his will were great, greater than those of his 
intellect. : , 

Father Vicente wrote a theological treatise in Latin, rather 
uncouth, so the intellectual said, and which had the sole dis- 
tinction of representing the most rabid of reactionary tenden- 
cies. 

The Theological Commentaries of Father Vicente de 
Valencia did not attract the attention of the men who follow 
the sport of occupying themselves with such things, whether 
or no; the presses did not groan printing criticisms of the 
book; but the Society of Jesus took note of the author and 
assisted Fort with all its power. 

A fanatic and a man of mediocre intelligence, that monk 
might perhaps be a considerable force in the hands of the 
Society. . 

A short while after the publication of his Commentaries, 
Father Vicente accompanied the general of his Order on a 
canonical visit to the monasteries in Spain, France, and Italy; 


AN EXTRAORDINARY FAMILY 35 


later he was appointed successively Visitor General for Spain, 
Consultor of the monastic province of Valencia, Definer of the 
Order, and a voting councillor in the government of the Order. 

The news of these honours reached the Fort family in vague 
form; the haughty monk gave no account of his successes. He 
considered himself to be without a country and without a 
family. 


THE CARDINAL’S NEPHEW AND NIECE 


The Tender-hearted died without having the consolation of 
seeing her son again; Jeronimo Fort, the youngest child, be- 
came head of the shop, Isabel married a soldier, Carlos Mon- 
cada, with whom she went to live in Madrid. 

Isabel Fort lived there a long time without remembering 
her monk brother, until she learned, to her great surprise, 
that they had made him a Cardinal. 

Father Vicente left off calling himself that and changed 
into Cardinal Fort. The darkness that surrounded him turned 
to light, and his figure stood out strongly. 

“Cardinale Forte,” they called him in Rome. He was 
known to be one of the persons that guided the Vatican 
camarilla, and one of those who impelled Leo XIII to rectify 
the slightly liberal policy of the first years of his pontificate. 

Cardinal Fort filled high posts. He was a Consultor in the 
Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, afterwards in that of 
Rites and in that of the Holy Office, and on special occasions 
was confessor to Leo XIII. 

Certainly having a Cardinal in the family is something that 
makes a showing; and Isabel, as soon as she knew it, wrote 
by the advice of the family, to her brother, so as to renew re- 
lations with him. 

The Cardinal replied, expressing interest in her husband 
and her children. Isabel sent him their pictures, and phrases 
of affection were cordially interchanged. 

After that they kept on writing to each other, and in one 
letter the Cardinal invited Isabel to come to Rome. She hesi- 


36 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


tated; but her husband convinced her that she ought to accept 
the invitation. They all of them went, and the Cardinal re- 
ceived them very affectionately. 

Juan Fort was living at that time in a monastery, like the 
other monks. He enjoyed an enormous influence in Rome and 
in Spain. Isabel wanted her husband promoted, and the 
Cardinal obtained that in a moment. 

Then Fort talked to his sister of the propriety of dedicating 
Caesar to the Church. He would enter the College of Nobles, 
then he would pass to the Nunciature, and in a short while he 
would be a potentate. 

Dofia Isabel told this to her husband; but the idea didn’t 
please him. They talked among themselves, they discussed it, 
and the small boy, then twelve years old, settled the question 
himself, saying that he would kill himself rather than be a 
priest or a monk, because he was a Republican. 

The Cardinal was not enthusiastic over this rebellious 
youngster who dared to speak out what he, in his childhood, 
would not have been bold enough to insinuate; but if Caesar 
did not appeal to him, on the other hand he was very much 
taken with Laura’s beauty and charm. 

The Moncada family returned to Spain after spending some 
months in Rome. Two years later Dofia Isabel’s husband 
died, and she, recalling the offers of her brother, the Cardinal, 
left Caesar in an Escolapian college in Madrid, and went to 
Rome, taking Laura with her. 

The Cardinal, in the meanwhile, had changed his position 
and his domicile; he was now living in the Palazzo Altemps 
in the Via di S. Apollinare, and leading a more sumptuous * 
life. 

They reproached him in Rome for his exclusiveness and at 
the same time for his tendency to ostentation. They said that 
if he was silent about himself, it was not through modesty, 
but because that is the best method to arrive at being a candi- 
date for the tiara. 

They added that he was very fond of showing himself in 
his red robes, and in fine carriages, and this ostentatious taste 


AN EXTRAORDINARY FAMILY 37 


was explained among the Italians by saying: “It’s simple 
enough; he is Spanish.” 

Publicly it was said that he was a great theologian, but 
privately he was considered a strong man, although of mediocre 
intelligence. 

“A Fort is always strong,” they said of him, making a pun 
on his name. “ He is one of the Spanish Eminences who rule 
the Pope,” a great English periodical stated, referring to him. 

On receiving his sister and his niece, the Cardinal put all 
his influence with the Black Party in play so that they should 
be accepted by the aristocratic society of Rome. He achieved 
that without much difficulty. Laura and her mother were 
naturaly distinguished and tactful, and they succeeded in form- 
ing a circle. 

The Cardinal felt proud of his family; and accompanying 
the two women gave him occasion for visiting many people. 

Roman slander calumniated Fort, assuming him to be having 
a love affair with his niece. Juan Fort showed an affection 
for Laura which seemed unheard of by those that knew him. 

The Cardinal was a man of exuberant pride, and he knew 
how to control himself. He felt a great fondness for Laura; 
but if there was anything more in this fondness than tranquil 
fatherly affection, if there was any passion, only he knew it; 
the fire lurked very deep in his overshaded soul. 

Laura made, socially speaking, a good marriage. She mar- 
ried the Marquis of Vaccarone, a babbling Neapolitan, insub- 
stantial and light. In a short while, seeing that they were 
not congenial, she arranged for an amicable separation and the 
two lived fadependenthny ' 


Ill 
CAESAR MONCADA 


AT THE ESCOLAPIANS 


AESAR studied in Madrid in an Escolapian college in 
the Calle de Hortaleza, where he was an intern all 
the time he was taking his bachelor’s degree. 

His mother had gone to live in Valencia, after marrying 
Laura off, and Caesar passed his vacations with her at a 
country-place in a neighbouring village. 

Several times a year Caesar received letters and photographs 
from his sister, and one winter Laura came to Valencia. She 
retained a great fondness for Caesar; he was fond of her too, 
although he did not show it, because his character was little 
inclined to affectionate expansion. 

At college Caesar showed himself to be a somewhat strange 
and absurd youth. As he was slight and of a sickly appear- 
ance, the teachers treated him with a certain consideration. 

One day a teacher noticed that Caesar creaked when he 
moved, as if his clothes were starched. 

“What are you wearing?” he asked him. 

“ Nothing.” 

“Nothing, indeed! Unbutton your jacket.” 

Caesar turned very pale and did not unbutton it; but the 
master, seizing him by a lapel, unbuttoned his jacket and his 
waistcoat, and found that the student was covered with papers. 

“What are these papers? For what purpose are you keep- 
ing them here? ” 

“He does it,” one of his fellow students replied, laughing, 
“because he is afraid of catching cold and becoming con- 
sumptive.”’ 

8 


CAESAR MONCADA 39 


They all made comments on the boy’s eccentricity, and a few 
days later, to show that he was not a coward, he tried to go 
out on the balcony on a cold winter night, with his chest bare. 

Among his fellow-students Caesar had an intimate friend, 
Ignacio Alzugaray, to whom he confided and explained his 
prejudices and doubts. Alzugaray was not a boarder, but a 
day-scholar. 

Ignacio brought anti-clerical periodicals to school, which 
Caesar read with enthusiasm. His sojourn in a religious 
college was producing a frantic hatred for priests in young 
Moncada. 

Caesar was remarkable for the rapidity of his decisions 
and the lack of vacillation in his opinions. He felt no timidity 
about either affirming or denying. 

His convictions were absolute; when he believed in the exact 
truth of a thing, he did not vacillate, he did not go back and 
discuss it; but-if his belief faltered, then he changed his 
opinion radically and went ahead stating the contrary of his 
previous statements, without recollecting his abandoned ideas. 

His other fellow-students did not care about discussions 
with a lad who appeared to have a monopoly of the truth. 

“Professor So-and-So is a beast; What-you-call-him is a 
talented chap; that fellow is a thick-witted chap. This kid is 
all right; that one is not.” 

In this rail-splitting manner did young Moncada announce 
his decisions, as if he held the secret explanation of all things 
tight between his fingers. 

Alzugaray seldom shared his friend’s opinions; but in spite 
of this divergence they understood each other very well. 

Alzugaray came of a modest family; his mother, the widow 
of a government clerk, lived on her pension and on the income 
from some property they owned in the North. 

Ignacio Alzugaray was very fond of his mother and his 
sister, and was always talking about them. Caesar alone 
would listen without being impatient to the meticulous nar- 
ratives Ignacio told about the things that happened at home. 

Alzugaray was of a very Catholic and very Carlist family; 


40 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


but like Caesar, he was beginning to protest against such ideas 
and to show himself Liberal, Republican, and even 
Anarchistic. Ignacio Alzugaray was a nephew of Carlos 
Yarza, the Spanish author, who lived in Paris, and who had 
taken part in the Commune and in the Insurrection of Carta- 
gena. 

Caesar, on hearing Alzugaray recount the doings of his uncle 
Carlos Yarza various times, said to his fellow-student: 

“When I get out of this college, the first thing I am going 
to do is to go to Paris to talk with your uncle.” 

“ What for?” 

*‘T have to talk to him.” 

As a matter of fact, once his course was finished, Caesar left 
the college, took a third-class ticket, went to Paris, and from 
there wrote to his mother informing her what he had done. 
Carlos Yarza, Alzugaray’s uncle, received him very affection- 
ately. He took him to dine and explained a good many 
things. Caesar asked the old man no end of questions and 
listened to him with real avidity. __ 

Carlos Yarza was at that time an employee in a bank. At 
this epoch his forte was for questions of speculation. He had 
put his mind and his will to the study of these matters and 
had the glimmering of a system in things where everybody else 
saw only contingencies without any possible law. 

Caesar accompanied Yarza to the Bourse and was amazed 
and stirred at seeing the enormous activity there. 

Yarza cleared away the innumerable doubts that occurred 
to the boy. 

In the short time Caesar spent in Paris he came to a most 
important conclusion, which was that in this life one had to 
fight terribly to get anywhere. 

One day, on awakening in the shabby little room where 
he lodged, he found that the arms of a very smart woman 
were around his neck. It was Laura, very contented and joy- 
ful to surprise her madcap brother. 

“Mamma is alarmed,” Laura told him. ‘“ What are you 
doing here all this time? Are you in love?” 


CAESAR MONCADA 41 


“TI? Bah!” 
“ Then what have you been doing? ” 
“T’ve been going to the Bourse.” 


SOUNDING-LINES IN LIFE 


Laura burst out laughing, and she accompanied her brother 
back to Valencia. Caesar’s mother wished the lad to take 
his law course there, but Caesar decided to do it in Madrid. 

“A provincial capital is an insupportable place,’’ he said. 

Caesar went to Madrid and rented a study and a bed-room, 
cheap and unrestricted. 

He boarded in one house and lodged at another. Thus he 
felt more free. 

Caesar believed that it was not worth the trouble to study 
law seriously; and he imagined moreover that to study so many 
routine conceptions, which may be false, such as the concep- 
tion of the soul, of equity, of responsibility, etc., would bring 
him to a shyster lawyer’s vulgar and affected idea of life. To 
counteract this tendency he devoted himself to studying 
zoology at the University, and the next year he took a course 
in physiology at San Carlos. 

At the same time he did not neglect the stock exchange; 
his great pride was to acquaint himself thoroughly with the 
details of the speculations made and to talk in the crowds. 

As a student he was mediocre. He learned the secret of 
passing examinations well with the minimum of effort, and 
practised it. He found that by knowing only a couple of 
things under each heading of the program, it was enough for 
him to answer and to pass well. And so, from the beginning 
of each course, he marked in the text the two or three lines 
of every page which seemed to him to comprise the essential, 
and having learned those, considered his knowledge sufficient. 

Caesar had a deep contempt for the University and for his 
fellow-students; all their rows and manifestations seemed to 
him repulsively flat and stupid. 

Alzugaray was studying law too, and had obtained a clerk- 


42 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


ship in a Ministry. Alzugaray got drunk on music. His 
great enthusiasm was for playing the ’cello. Caesar used to 
call on him at his office and at home. 

The clerks at the Ministry seemed to Caesar to form part 
of an inferior human race. 

At Alzugaray’s house, Caesar felt at home. Ignacio’s 
mother, a lady with white hair, was always making stockings, 
and after dinner she recited the rosary with the maid; 
Alzugaray’s sister, Celedonia, a tall ungainly lass, was often 
ill. 

All the family thought a great deal of Caesar; his advice 
was followed at that house, and one of the operations on 
‘change that he recommended making with some Foreign bonds 
that Ignacio’s mother was holding at the time of the Cuban 
War, gave everybody in the house an extraordinary idea of 
young Moncada’s financial talents. 

Caesar kept his balance among his separate activities; one 
set of studies complemented others. This diversity of points 
of view kept him from taking the false and one-sided position 
that those who preoccupy themselves with one branch of 
knowledge exclusively get into. 

The one-sided position is most useful to a specialist, to a 
man who expects to remain satisfied in the place where chance 
has put him; but it is useless for one who proposes to enter 
life with his blood afire. 

As almost always occurs, the projecting of ideas of distinct 
derivation and of different orders into the same plane, carried 
Caesar into absolute scepticism, scepticism about things, and 
especially scepticism about the instrument of knowledge. 

His negation had no reference,— far from it,—to women, 
to love, or to friends, things where the pedantic and ostentatious 
scepticism of literary men of the Larra type usually finds its 
fodder; his nihilism was much more the confusion and dis- 
composure of one that explores a region well or badly, and 
finds no landmarks there, no paths, and returns with a belief 
that even the compass is not exact in what it shows. 

“Nothing absolute exists,” Caesar told himself, “ neither 


CAESAR MONCADA 43 


science nor mathematics nor even the truth, can be an abso- 
‘lute thing.” t 

Arriving at this result surprised Caesar a good deal. On 
finding that he was not successful in lighting on a philosophical 
system which would be a guide to him and which could be 
reasoned out like a theorem, he sought within the purely sub- 
jective for something that might satisfy him and serve as a 
standard. 


A PHILOSOPHY 


Toward the end of their course Caesar presented himself one 
day in his friend Alzugaray’s office. 

“T think,” he said, “that I am getting my philosophy into 
shape.” 

“My dear man! ” 

“Yes. I have tacked some new contours on to my Darwin- 
ian pragmatism.” 

Alzugaray, in whom every treasure-trove of his friend’s 
always produced great surprise, stood staring naively at him. 

“Yes, I am building up my system,” Caesar went on, “a 
system within relative truth. It is clear.” 

“ Let’s hear what it is.” 

“In regard to us,” said Caesar, as if he were speaking of 
something that had happened in the street a few minutes be- 
fore, “ our uncertain instrument of knowledge makes two ap- 
parent states of nature seem real to us; one, the static, in which 
things are perceived by us as motionless; the other, the 
dynamic, wherein these same things are found in motion. It 
is clear that in reality everything is in motion; but within the 
relative truth of our ideas we are able to believe that there 
are some things in repose and others in action. Isn’t that so?” 

“Yes. That is, I think so,” replied Alzugaray, who was 
beginning to wonder if the whole earth was trembling under 
his feet. 

“Good! ” Caesar continued. “I am going to pass from 
nature to life: I am going to assume that life has a purpose. 
Where can this purpose be found? We don’t know. But 


44 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


what can be the machinery of this purpose? Only movement, 
action. That is to say, struggle. This assertion once made, I 
am going to take a hand in carrying it out. The things we 
call spiritual also are dynamic. Who says anything whatso- 
ever says matter and force; who says force affirms attraction 
and repulsion; attraction and repulsion are synonymous with 
movement, with struggle, with action. Now I am inside of 
my system. It will consist of putting all the forces near me 
into movement, into action, into struggle. What pleasure may 
there be in this? First, the pleasure of doing, the pleasure, 
we might call it, of efficiency; secondly, the pleasure of see- 
ing, the pleasure of observing. ... What do you think of 
it?” 

“Fine, man! The things you start are always good.” 

“ Then there is the moral point. I think I have settled that 
too.” 

“ That too? ” ‘ 

“Yes. Morals should be nothing more than the true, fitting, 
and natural law of man. Man considered solely as a spiritual 
machine? No. Considered as an animal that eats and 
drinks? Not that either. Man considered as a complete 
whole. Isn’t that so?” 

“T believe it is.” 

“I proceed. In nature laws become more obscure, accord- 
ing as more complicated objects of knowledge turn up. We 
all clearly see the law of the triangle, and the law of oxygen 
or of carbon with the same clearness. These laws appear to 
us as being without exception. But then comes the mineral, 
and we begin to see variations; in this form it exerts one at- 
traction, in that form a different one. We ascend to the 
vegetable and find a sort of surprise-package. The surprises 
are centupled in the animal; and are raised to an unknown 
degree in man. What is the law of man, as man? We do 
not know it, probably we shall never know it. Right and jus- 
tice may be truths, but they will always be fractional truths. 
Traditional morality is a pragmatism, useful and efficacious 

~ for social life, for well-ordered life; but at the bottom, with- 


CAESAR MONCADA 45 


out reality. Summing all this up: first, life is a labyrinth 
which has no Ariadne’s thread but one,— action; secondly, 
man is upheld in his high qualities by force and struggle. 
Those are my conclusions.” 

“Clever devil! I don’t know what to say to you.” 

Alzugaray asserted that, without taking it upon him to say 
whether his friend’s ideas were good or bad, they had no practi- 
cal value; but Caesar insisted once and many times on the 
advantages he saw in his metaphysics. 


ENCHIRIDION SAPIENTIAE 


Caesar remained in the same sphere during the whole period 
of his law course, always seeking, according to his own words, 
to add one wheel more to his machine. 

His life contained few incidents; summers he went to 
Valencia, and there, in the villa, he read and talked with the 
peasants. His mother, devoted solely to the Church, bothered 
herself little about her son. 

Caesar ended his studies, and on his coming of age, they 
gave him his share of his father’s estate. 

Incontinently he took the train, he went to Paris, he looked 
up Yarza. He explained to him his vague projects of action. 
Yarza listened attentively, and said: 

“Perhaps it will appear foolish to you, but I am going 
to give you a book I wrote, which I should like you to read. 
It’s called Enchiridion Sapientiae. In my youth I was some- 
thing of a Latinist. In these pages, less than a hundred, I 
have gathered my observations about the financial and political 
world. It might as well be called Contribution to Common- 
sense, or Neo-Machiavellianism. If you find that it helps you, 
keep it.” 

Caesar read the book with concentrated attention. 

“ How did it strike you? ” said Yarza. 

“There are many things in it I don’t agree with; I shall 
have to think over them again.” 

“All right. Then keep my Enchiridion and go on to 


46 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


London. Paris is a city that has finished. It is not worth 
the trouble of losing one’s time staying here.” 

Caesar went to London, always with the firm intention of 
going into something. From time to time he wrote a long letter 
to Ignacio Alzugaray, telling him his impressions of politics 
and financial questions. 

While he was in London his sister joined him and invited 
him to go to Florence; two years later she begged him to ac- 
company her to Rome. Caesar had always declined to visit 
the Eternal City, until, on that occasion, he himself showed 
a desire to go to Rome with his sister. 


IV 
PEOPLE WHO PASS CLOSE BY 


THE SAN MARTINO YOUNG LADIES 


RRIVED at Rome, Laura and Caesar went up to the 

hotel, and were received by a bald gentleman with a 

pointed moustache, who showed them into a large 
round salon with a very high ceiling. 

It was a theatrical salon, with antique furniture and large 
red-velvet arm-chairs with gilded legs. ‘The enormous mirrors, 
somewhat tarnished by age, made the salon appear even 
larger. On the consoles and cabinets gleamed objects of 
majolica and porcelain. 

The big window of this salon opened on the Piazza Esedra 
di Termini. Caesar and Laura looked out through the glass. 
It was beginning to rain again; the great semi-circular extent 
of the square was shining with rain. . 

The passing trams slipped around the curve in the track; 
a caravan of tourists in ten or twelve carriages in file, all with 
their umbrellas open, were preparing to visit the monuments 
of Rome; strolling pedlars were showing them knick-knacks 
and religious gewgaws. 

Caesar’s and Laura’s rooms were got ready and the manager 
of the hotel asked them again if they had need of nothing else. 
“ What are you going to do?” said Laura to her brother. 
“T am going to stretch myself out in bed for a while.” 

“Lunch at half-past twelve.” 

“ Good, I will get up at that time.” 

“Good-bye, bambino. Have a good rest. Put on your 
black suit to come to the.table.” 

** Very well.” 

47 


48 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


Caesar stretched himself on the bed, slept off and on, some- 
what feverish from fatigue, and at about twelve he woke at 
the noise they made in bringing his luggage into the room. 
He got up to open the trunks, washed and dressed, and when 
the customary gong resounded, he presented himself in the 
salon. 

Laura was chatting with two young ladies and an older 
lady, the Countess of San Martino and her daughters. They 
were in Rome for the season and lived regularly in Venice. 

Laura introduced her brother to these ladies, and the 
Countess pressed Caesar’s hand between both of hers, very 
affectionately. 

The Countess was tiny and dried-up: a mummy with the 
face of a grey-hound, her skin close to her bones, her lips 
painted, little penetrating blue eyes, and great vivacity in her 
movements. She dressed in a showy manner; wore jewels on 
her bosom, on her head, on her fingers. 

The daughters looked like two little blond princesses: with 
rosy cheeks, eyebrows like two golden brush-strokes, almost 
colourless, clear blue eyes of a heavenly blue, and such small 
red lips, that on seeing them, the classical simile of cherries 
came at once to one’s mind. 

The Countess of San Martino asked Caesar like a shot if 
he was married and if he hadn’t a sweetheart. Caesar replied 
that he was a bachelor and that he had no sweetheart, and 
then the Countess came back by asking if he felt no vocation 
for matrimony. 

“No, I believe I don’t,” responded Caesar. 

The two young women smiled, and their mother said, with 
truly diverting familiarity, that men were becoming impos- 
sible. Afterwards she added that she was anxious for her 
daughters to marry. 

“When one of these children is married and has a bam- 
bino, I shall be more contented! If God sent me a cheru- 
bino del cielo, I shouldn’t be more so.” 

Laura laughed, and one of the little blondes remarked with 
aristocratic indifference: 


PEOPLE WHO PASS CLOSE BY 49 


‘“* Getting married comes first, mamma.” 

To this the Countess of San Martino observed that she didn’t 
understand the behaviour of girls nowadays. 

“When I was a young thing, I always had five or six beaux 
at once; but my daughters haven’t the same idea. They are 
so indifferent, so superior! ” 

“Tt seems that you two don’t take all the notice you should,” 
said Caesar to the girls in French. 

“You see what a mistake it is,” answered one of them, 
smiling. 

The last round of the gong sounded and various persons 
entered the salon. Laura knew the majority of them and in- 
troduced them, as they came, to her brother. 


OBSERVATIONS BY CAESAR 

The waiter appeared at the door, announced that lunch was 
ready, and they all passed into the dining-room. 

Laura and her brother were installed at a small table beside 
the window. 

The dining-room, very large and very high, flaunted decora- 
tions copied from some palace. They consisted of a tapestry 
with garlands of flowers, and medallions. In each medallion 
were the letters S. P. Q. R. and various epicurean phrases of 
the Romans: “Carpe diem. Post mortem nulla voluptas,” 
et cetera. . 

“ Beautiful decoration, but very cold,” said Caesar. “I 
should prefer rather fewer mottoes and a little more warmth.” 

“ You are very hard to please,” retorted Laura. 

Shortly after getting seated, everybody began to talk from 
table to table and even from one end of the room to the other. 
There was none of that classic coolness among the people in 
the hotel which the English have spread everywhere, along with 
underdone meat and bottled sauces. 

Caesar devoted himself for the first few moments to 
ethnology. 

“Even from the people you find here, you can see that 
there is a great diversity of ethnic type in Italy,” he said to 


50 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


Laura. “That blond boy and the Misses San Martino are 
surely of Saxon origin; the waiter, on the other hand, swarthy 
like that, is a Berber.” 

“Because the blond boy and the San Martinos are from 
the North, and the waiter must be Neapolitan or Sicilian. 

“ Besides, there is still another type: shown by that dark 
young woman over there, with the melancholy air. She must 
be a Celtic type. What is obvious is that there is great live- 
liness in these people, great elegance in their movements. 
They are like actors giving a good performance.” 

Caesar’s observations were interrupted by the arrival of a 
dark, plump woman, who came in from the street, accom- 
panied by her daughter, a blond girl, fat, smiling, and a bit 
timid. 

This lady and Laura bowed with much ceremony. 

** Who is she? ” asked Caesar in a low tone. 

“It is the Countess Brenda,” said Laura. 

“ Another countess! But are all the women here count- 
esses?” 

“Don’t talk nonsense.” 

At the other end of the dining-room a young Neapolitan 
with the expression of a Pulcinella and violent gestures, raised 
his sing-song voice, talking very loud and making everybody 
laugh. 

After lunching, Caesar went out to post some cards, and 
- as it was raining buckets, he took refuge in the arcades of — 
the Piazza Esedra. 

When he was tired of walking he returned to the hotel, went 
to his room, turned on the light, and started to continue his 
unfinished perusal of Proudhon’s book on the speculator. 

And while he read, there came from the salon the notes of 
a Tzigane waltz played on the piano. 


ART, FOR DECEIVED HUSBANDS 


Caesar was writing something on the margin of a page when 
there came a knock at his door. 


PEOPLE WHO PASS CLOSE BY §1 


“Come in,” said Caesar. 

It was Laura. 

“* Where are you expt yourself? ” she asked, 

“ Here I am, reading a little.” 

“ But my dear man, we are waiting for you.” 

“ What for? ” 

“The idea, what for? To talk.” 

“I don’t feel like talking. I am very tired.” 

“But, bambino; Benedetto. Are you going to live your 
life avoiding everybody? ” 

“No; I will come out tomorrow.” 

“What do you want to do tonight? ” 

“Tonight! Nothing.” 

“Don’t you want to go to the theatre? ” 

“No, no; I have a tremendously weak pulse, and a little 
fever. My hands are on fire at this moment.” 

“ What foolishness! ” 

“Tt’s true.” 

“So then you won’t come out?” 

6c No.”’ 

“ All right. As you wish.” 

“When the weather is good, I will go out.” 

“ Do you want me to fetch you a Baedeker? ” 

“No, I have no use for it.” 

“ Don’t you intend to look at the sights, either? ” 

“Yes, I will look willingly at what comes before my eyes; 
it wouldn’t please me if the same thing happened to me that 
took place in Florence.” 

“What happened to you in Florence? ” 

“TJ lost my time lamentably, getting enthusiastic over 
Botticelli, Donatello, and a lot of other foolishness, and when 
I got back to London it cost me a good deal of work to succeed 
in forgetting those things and getting myself settled in my 
financial investigations again. So that now I have decided 
to see nothing except in leisure moments and without attaching 
any importance to all those fiddle-faddles.” 


52 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“ But what childishness! Is it going to distract you so much 
from your work, from that serious work you have in hand, 
to go and see a few pictures or some statues? ” 

“To see them, no, not exactly; but to occupy myself with 
them, yes. Art is a good thing for those who haven’t the 
strength to live, in realities. It is a good form of sport for 
old maids, for deceived husbands who need consolation, as 
hysterical persons need morphine. . . .” 

“And for strong people like you, what is there?” asked 
Laura, ironically. 

“For strong people! ... Action.” 

“And you call lying in bed, reading, action? ” 

“Yes, when one reads with the intentions I read with.” 

“ And what are they? What is it you are plotting?” 

*T will tell you.” 

Laura saw that she could not convince her brother, and re- 
turned to the salon. A moment before dinner was announced 
Caesar got dressed again in black, put on his patent-leather 
shoes, looked at himself offhandedly in the mirror, saw that he 
was all right, and joined his sister. 


V 
THE ABBE PRECIOZI 


THE BIG BIRDS IN ROME 


HE next day Caesar awoke at nine, jumped out of 

bed, and went to breakfast. Laura had left word 

that she would not eat at home. Caesar took an 
umbrella and went out into the street. The weather was very 
dark but it held off from rain. 

Caesar took the Via Nazionale toward the centre of town. 
Among the crowd, some foreigners with red guide-books in 
their hands, were walking with long strides to see the sights 
of Rome, which the code of worldly snobbishness considers it 
indispensable to admire. 

Caesar had no settled goal. On a plan of the city, hung 
in a newspaper kiosk, he found the situation of the Piazza 
Esedra, the hotel and the adjacent streets, and continued 
slowly ahead. 

“How many people there must be who are excited and have 
an irregular pulse on arriving for the first time in one of these 
historic towns,” thought Caesar. “I, for my part, was in that 
situation the first time I clearly understood the mechanism 
of the London Exchange.” 

Caesar continued down the Via Nazionale and stopped in a 
‘small square with a little garden and a palm. Bounding the 
square on one side arose a greenish wall, and above this wall, 
which was adorned with statues, stretched a high garden with 
magnificent trees, and among them a great stone pine. 

“A beautiful garden to walk in,” said Caesar. ‘ Perhaps 
it is an historic spot, perhaps it isn’t. I am very happy that I 
don’t know either its name or its history, if it really has one.” 

53 


54 - CAESAR OR NOTHING 


From the same point in the Via Nazionale, a street with 
flights of steps could be seen to the left, and below a white 
stone column. 

“Nothing doing; I don’t know what that is either,” 
thought Caesar; “the truth is that one is terribly ignorant. 
To make matters even, what a well of knowledge about ques- 
tions of finance there is in my cranium! ” 

Caesar continued on to the Piazza Venezia, contemplated 
the palace of the Austrian Embassy, yellow, battlemented; and 
stopped under a big white umbrella, stuck up to protect the 
switchman of the tramway. 

“Here, at least, the weight of tradition or history is not 
noticeable. I don’t believe this canvas is a piece of Brutus’s 
tunic, or of Pompey’s campaign tent. I feel at home here; 
this canvas modernizes me.” 

The square was very animated at that moment: groups of 
seminarians were passing in robes of black, red, blue, violet, 
and sashes of contrasting colours; monks of all sorts were cross- 
ing, smooth-shaven, bearded, in black, white, brown; foreign 
priests were conversing in groups, wearing little dishevelled 
hats adorned with a tassel; horrible nuns with moustaches and 
black moles, and sweet little white nuns, with a coquettish air. 

The clerical fauna was admirably represented. A Capuchin 
friar, long-bearded and dirty, with the air of a footpad, and 
an umbrella by way of a blunderbuss or musket under his 
arm, was talking to a Sister of Charity. 

“ Undoubtedly religion is a very picturesque thing,” mur- 
mured Caesar. “A spectacular impressario would not have 
the imagination to think out all these costumes.” 

Caesar took the Corso. Before he reached the Piazza 
Colonna it began to rain. The coachmen took out enormous 
umbrellas, all rolled-up, opened them and stood them in iron 
supports, in such a way that the box-seat was as it were under 
a campaign tent. 

Caesar took refuge in the entrance to a bazaar. The rain 
' began to assume the proportions of a downpour. An old 
friar, with a big beard, a white habit, and a hood, armed 


THE ABBE PRECIOZI 55 


with an untamable umbrella, attempted to cross the square. 
The umbrella turned inside out in the gusts of wind, and his 
beard seemed to be trying to get away from his face. 

“ Povero frate!” said one of the crowd, smiling. 

A priest passed hidden under an umbrella. A tough among 
the refugees in the bazaar-doorway said that you couldn’t tell 
if it was a woman or a priest, and the cleric, who no doubt 
heard the remark, threw a severe and threatening look at the 
group. 

It stopped raining, and Caesar continued his walk along 
the Corso. He went a bit out of his way to throw a glance 
at the Piazza di Spagna. The great stairway in that square 
was shining, wet with the rain; a few seminarians in groups 
were going up the steps toward the Pincio. 

Caesar arrived at the Piazza del Popolo and stopped near 
some ragamuffins who were playing a game, throwing coins in 
the air. A tattered urchin had written with charcoal on a 
wall: “Viva Musolino!” and below that he was drawing 
a heart pierced by two daggers. 

“Very good,” murmured Caesar. ‘“ This youngster is like 
me: an advocate of action.” 

It began to rain again; Caesar decided to turn back. He 
took the same route and entered a café on the Corso for lunch. 
The afternoon turned out magnificent and Caesar went 
wandering about at random. 


THE CICERONE 


At twilight he returned to his inn, changed, and went to 
the salon. Laura was conversing with a young abbé. 

“The Abbé Preciozi. . . . My brother Caesar.” 

The Abbé Preciozi was one of the household of Cardinal 
Fort, who had sent him to the hotel to act as cicerone to his 
nephew. 

“Uncle has sent the abbé so that he can show you Rome.” 

“Oh, many thanks!” answered Caesar. “I will make use 
of his knowledge; but I don’t want him to neglect his occupa- 
tions or to put himself out on my account.” 


56 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“No, no. I am at your disposition,” replied the abbé, 
“His Eminence has given me orders to wait on you, and it 
will not put me out in the least.” 

“You will have dinner with us, Preciozi?” said Laura. 

“Oh, Marchesa! Thank you so much! ” 

And the abbé bowed ceremoniously. 

The three dined together, and afterwards went to the salon 
to chat. One of the San Martino young ladies played the 
viola and the other the piano, and people urged them to exhibit 
their skill. 

The talkative Neapolitan turned over the pieces of music 
in the music-stand, and after discussing with the two con- 
tessinas, he placed on the rack the “ Intermezzo” from 
Cavalleria Rusticana. 

The two sisters played, and the listeners made great eulogies 
about their ability. 

Laura presented Caesar and the Abbé Preciozi to the Countess 
Brenda and to a lady who had just arrived from Malta. 

“Did you know Rome before? ”’ the Countess asked Caesar 
in French. 

“No.” 

“ And how does it strike you?” 

“My opinion is of no value,” said Caesar. ‘I am not an 
artist. Imagine; my specialty is financial questions. Up to 
the present what has given me the greatest shock is to find 
that Rome has walls.” 

“You didn’t know it?” asked Laura. 

“ No.” 

“Dear child, I find that you are very ignorant.” 

“What do you wish?” replied Caesar in Spanish. “I am 
inclined to be ignorant of everything I don’t get anything out 
of.” 

Caesar spoke jokingly of a square like a hole in the ground, 
out of which rises a white column similar to the one in Paris 
in the Place Vendéme.” 

“What does he mean? Trajan’s column?” asked Pre- 
ciozi. 


THE ABBE PRECIOZI 57 


“Tt must be,” said Laura. “I have a brother who’s a 
barbarian. Weren’t you in the Forum, too?” 

“Which is the Forum? An open space where there are a 
lot of stones?” 

“ Yes.”’ 

“‘T passed by there; there were a good many tourists, crowds 
of young ladies peering intently into corners and a gentleman 
with a bag over his shoulder who was pointing out some 
columns with an umbrella. Afterwards I saw a ticket-window. 
‘That doubtless means that one pays to get in,’ I said, and 
as the ground was covered with mud and I didn’t care to wet 
my feet, I asked a young rascal who was selling post-cards 
what that place was. I didn’t quite understand his explana- 
tion, which I am sure was very amusing. He confused 
Emperors with the Madonna and the saints. I gave the lad 
a lira and had some trouble in escaping from there, because 
he followed me around everywhere calling me Excellency.” 

“T think Don Caesar is making fun of us,” said Preciozi. 

“ No, no.” 

“ But really, how did Rome strike you, on the whole?” 
asked the abbé. t 

“Well, I find it like a mixture of a monumental great city 
and a provincial capital.” 

“ That is possible,” responded the abbé. ‘‘ Undoubtedly the 
provincial city is more of a city than the big modern capitals, 
where there is nothing to see but fine hotels on one hand 
and horrible hovels on the other. If you came from America, 
like me, you would see how agreeable you would find the im- 
pression of a city that one gets here. To forget all the 
geometry, the streets laid out with a compass, the right 
angles... .” 

“ Probably so.” 

The abbé seemed to have an interest in gaining Caesar’s 
friendship. Caesar said to him that, if he wished, they could 
go to his room to chat and smoke. The abbé accepted with 
gusto, and Caesar, being a suspicious person, wondered if the 
Cardinal might have sent the abbé to find out what sort of man 


58 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


he was. Then he considered that his ideas must be of no 
importance whatsoever to his uncle; but on the chance, he set 
himself to throwing the abbé off the scent, talking volubly and 
emitting contradictory opinions about everything. 

After chattering a long while and devoting himself to free 
paradox, Caesar thought that for the first session he had not 
done altogether badly. Preciozi took leave, promising to come 
back the next day. 

“If he reports our conversation to my uncle, the man won’t 
know what to think of me,” reflected Caesar, on going to bed. 
“Tt would not be too much to expect, if His Eminence became 
interested and sent to fetch me. But I don’t believe he will; 
my uncle cannot be intelligent enough to have the curiosity 
to know a man like me.” 


VI 


THE LITTLE INTERESTS OF THE PEOPLE IN A 
ROMAN HOTEL 


INTIMACIES 


URING some days the main interest of the people 

in the hotel was the growing intimacy established 

between the Marchesa Sciacca, who was the lady 
from Malta, and the Neapolitan with the Pulcinella air, 
Signor Carminatti. 

The Maltese must have been haughty and exclusive, to judge 
from the queenly air she assumed. Only with the handsome 
Neapolitan did she behave amiably. 

In the dining-room the Maltese sat with her two children, 
a boy and a girl, at the other end from where Caesar and 
Laura were accustomed to sit. At her side, at a table close 
by, chattered and jested the diplomatic Carminatti. 

The Marquis of Sciacca was ill with diabetes; he had come 
to Rome to take a treatment, and during these days he did 
not come to the dining-room. 

The Marchesa was one of those mixed types, unharmonious, 
common among mongrel races. Her black hair shone like jet, 
her lips looked like an Egyptian’s, and her eyes of a very 
light blue showed off in a curious way in her bronzed face. 
She powdered her face, she painted her lips, she shaded her 
eyes with kohl. Her appearance was that of a proud, re- 
vengeful woman. 

She ate with much nicety, opening her mouth so little that 
she could put no more than the tip of her spoon between her 
lips; with her children she talked English and Italian in equal 
perfection, and when she heard young Carminatti’s facetious 
remarks she laughed with marked impudence. 

59 


60 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


Signor Carminatti was tall, with a black moustache, a 
hooked nose, well-formed languid eyes, lively and somewhat 
clownish gestures; he was at the same time sad and merry, 
melancholy and smiling, he changed his expression every 
moment. He was in the habit of appearing in the salon in a 
dinner-jacket, with a large flower in his button-hole and two 
or three fat diamonds on his chest. He would come along 
dragging his feet, would bow, make a joke, stand mournful; 
and this fluency of expression, and these gesticulations, gave 
him a manner halfway between woman and child. 

When he grew petulant, especially, he seemed like a 
woman. “ Macché!” he would say continually, with an acrid 
voice and the disgusted air of an hysterical dame. 

In spite of his frequent petulant fits, he was the person — 
most esteemed by the ladies of the hotel, both young and mar- 
ried. 

“He is the darling of the ladies,” the Countess Brenda 
said of him, mockingly. 

Laura had not the least use for him. 

“T know that type by heart,” she asserted with disdain. 

During lunch and dinner Signor Carminatti did not leave © 
off talking for a moment with the Maltese. The Marchesa 
Sciacca’s children often wanted to tell their mother something; 
but she hushed them so as to be able to hear the bright say- 
ings of the handsome Neapolitan. 

The San Martino young ladies and the Countess Brenda’s 
daughter kept trying to find a way to steal Carminatti for 
their group; but he always went back to the Maltese, doubt- 
less because her conversation was more diverting and spicy. 


THE CONTESSINA BRENDA 


The Countess Brenda’s daughter, Beatrice Brenda, in spite 
of her pea-hen air, was always endeavouring to stir up the 
Neapolitan and to start a conversation with him; but Car- 
minatti in his light-hearted way would reply with a jest or a 
fatuous remark and betake himself again to the Marchesa 
Sciacca, who would make her disturbing children hush be- 


IN A ROMAN HOTEL 61 


cause they often prevented her from catching what the 
Neapolitan was saying. 

She was not to be despised; not by a long shot, was 
Signorina Bice, not in any respect; besides being very rich, 
she was a beautiful girl and promised to be more beautiful; 
she had the type of Titian’s women, an opaline white skin, 
as though made of mother-of-pearl, plump milky arms, and 
dark eyes. The one thing lacking in her was expression. 

She used frequently to go about in the company of an 
aristocratic old maid, very ugly, with red hair and a face 
like a horse, but very distinguished, who ate at the next table 
to Laura and Caesar. 

One day Carminatti brought another Neapolitan home to 
dinner with him, a fat grotesque person, whom he instigated 
to emit a series of improprieties about women and matrimony. 
Hearing the scandalous sallies of the rustic, the ladies said, 
with an amiable smile: 

“He is a benedetto.” 

The Contessina Brenda, fascinated by the Neapolitan, went 
to the Marchesa Sciacca’s table. As she passed, Carminatti 
arose with his napkin in one hand, and gesticulating with the 
other, said: 

“Contessina. Allow me to present to you Signor Cap- 
pagutti, a merchant from Naples.” 

Signor Cappagutti remained leaning back tranquilly in his 
chair, and the Contessina burst out laughing and began to move 
her arms as if somebody had put a horse-fly on her skirt. 
Then she raised her hand to her face, to hide her laughter, 
and suddenly sat down. 


DANCING 


As it rained a great deal the majority of the guests preferred 
not to go out. In the evenings they had dances. Caesar did 
not appear at the first one; but his sister told him he ought 
to go. Caesar was at the second dance, so as not to seem 
too much of an ogre. As he had no intention of dancing, he 


62 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


installed himself in a corner; and while the dance went on 
he kept talking with the Countesses Brenda and San Martino. 

Various young men had arrived in the room. They ex- 
hibited that Southern vivacity which is a trifle tiresome to the 
onlooker, and they all listened to themselves while they spoke. 
The Neapolitan and two or three of his friends were intro- 
duced to Caesar; but they showed him a certain rather osten- 
tatious and impertinent coolness. 

Signor Carminatti exchanged a few words with the Couniiens 
Brenda, and purposely acted as if he did not notice Caesar’s 
presence. 

The Neapolitan’s chatter did not irritate Caesar in the 
slightest, and as he had no intention of being his rival, he 
listened to him quite entertained. 

Caesar noted that the San Martino ladies and some friends 
of theirs had a predilection for types like Carminatti, swarthy, 
prattling, and boastful South Italians. 

The ladies showed an affectionate familiarity with the girls; 
they caressed them and kissed them effusively. 


YOU ARE AN INQUISITOR 


Laura, who was dancing with an officer, approached her 
brother, who was wedged into a corner, behind two rows of 
chairs. 

“What are you doing here?” she asked him, stopping and 
informing her partner that she was going to sit down a 
moment. 

“Nothing,” answered Caesar, “I am waiting for this waltz 
to finish, so that I can get away.” 

“You are not enjoying yourself?” 

“ Pish!” 

“ Nevertheless, there are amusing things about it.” 

“ Ah, surely. Do you know what happened to me with the 
Countess Brenda? ” 

“ What did happen? ” 

“ When she came in and gave me her hand, she said: ‘How 


IN A ROMAN HOTEL 63 


hot your hands are; mine are frozen.’ And she held my hands 
between hers. That was comical.” 

“ Comical! Why?” 

“ How do I know?” 

“It is comical to you, because you see only evil motives. 
She held your hand. Who knows what she may be after? 
Who knows if she wants to get something out of you? She 
has an income of eighty or ninety thousand lire, perhaps she 
wants to borrow money from you.” 

“No, I know she doesn’t.” 

“ Then, what are you afraid of? ” 

“ Afraid! Afraid of nothing! Only it surprised me.” 

“‘That’s because you look at everything with the eye of an 
inquisitor. One must be suspicious: be always on one’s 
guard, always on the watch. It’s the attitude of a savage.” 

“T don’t deny it. I have no desire to be civilized like these 
people. But what does come to me is that the husband of 
our illustrious and wealthy friend wears in his breast that 
porte-bonheur, which I believe is called horns.” 

“Of course; and you haven’t discovered that his family 
is a family of assassins? How Spanish! What a savage 
Spaniard I have for a brother!” 

Caesar burst into laughter, and taking advantage of the 
moment when everybody was going to the buffet, left the room. 
In the corridor, one of the San Martino girls, the more sweet 
and angelic of the two, was in a corner with one of the dancers, 
and there was a sound like a kiss. 

The little blonde made an exclamation of fright; Caesar be- 
haved as if he had noticed nothing and kept on his way. 

“ The devil! ” exclaimed Caesar, “ that angelic little princess 
hides in corners with one of these briganti. And their 
mother has the face to say that they don’t know how to bait 
a hook! I don’t know what more she could wish. Although 
it is possible that this is the educational scheme of the future 
for marriageable girls.” 

In the entrance-hall of the hotel were the Marchesa 
Sciacca’s two children, attended by a sleeping maid; the little 


64 | CAESAR OR NOTHING 


girl, seated on a sofa, was watching her brother, who walked 
from one side to the other with a roll of paper in his hand. 
In the entrance hall, opposite the hotel door, there was a 
bulletin, which was changed every day, tu announce the differ- 
ent performances that were to be given that night at the theatres 
of Rome. 

The small boy walked back and forth in front of the poster, 
and addressing himself to a public consisting of the sleeping 
maid and the little girl, cried: 

“Step up, gentlemen! Step up! Now is the time. We 
are about to perform La Geisha, the magnificent English 
operetta. Walk right in! Walk right in!” 

While the mother was dancing with the Neapolitan in the 
ball-room, the children were amusing themselves thus alone. 

“The truth is that our civilization is an absurdity. Even 
the children go mad,” thought Caesar, and took refuge in his 
room. 

During the whole night he heard from his bed the notes of 
the waltzes and two-steps, and dancers’ laughter and shouts 
and shuffling feet. 


THEY ARE JUST CHILDREN 


The next day, Laura, before going out to make a call, ap- 
peared at lunch-time most elegantly dressed, with a gown and 
a hat from Paris, in which she was truly most charming. 

She had a great success: the San Martinos, the Countess 
Brenda, the other ladies congratulated her. The hat, above 
all, seemed ideal to them. 

Carminatti was in raptures. 

“ E bello, bellissimo,” he said, with great enthusiasm, and 
all the ladies agreed that it was bellissimo, lengthening the 
“s” and nodding their heads with a gesture of admiration. 

“And you don’t say anything to me, bambino?” Laura 
inquired of Caesar. 

“T say you are all right.” 

“And nothing more? ” 

“Tf you want me to pay you a compliment, I will tell you 
that you are pretty enough to make incest legitimate.” 


IN A ROMAN HOTEL 65 


“ What a barbarian! ” murmured Laura, half laughing, half 
blushing. 

“What has he been saying to you?” two or three people 
inquired. 

Laura translated his words into Italian, and Carminatti 
found them admirable. 

“Very appropriate! Very witty!” he exclaimed, laughing, 
and gave Caesar a friendly slap on the shoulder. 

The Marchesa Sciacca looked at Laura several times with 
reflective glances and a rancorous smile. 

“ The truth is that these Southern people are just children,” 
thought Caesar, mockingly. ‘‘ What an inveterate preoccupa- 
tion they have in the beautiful.” 

The Neapolitan was one of those most preoccupied with 
esthetics. 

Caesar had a room opposite Signor Carminatti’s, and the 
first few days he had thought it was a woman’s room. Toilet 
flasks, sprays, boxes of powder; the room looked like a per- 
fumery shop. 

“It is curious,’ Caesar used to think, “ how these people 
from famous historic towns can combine powder and the 
maffia, opoponax and daggers.” 

Almost every night after dinner there was an improvised 
dance in the salon. Somebody played the languorous waltzes 
of the Tzigane orchestras on the piano. The Maltese and 
Carminatti used to sing romantic songs, of the kind whose 
words and music seem to be always the same, and in which 
there invariably is question of panting, refulgent, love, and 
other suggestive words. 

One Sunday evening, when it was raining, Caesar stayed 
in the hotel. 

In the salon Carminatti was doing sleight-of-hand to enter- 
tain the ladies. Afterwards the Neapolitan was seen pursuing 
the Marchesa Sciacca and the two San Martino girls in the 
corridors. They shrieked shrilly when he grabbed them 
around the waist. The devil of a Neapolitan was an expert 
at sleight-of-hand. 


VII 
THE CONFIDENCES OF THE ABBE PRECIOZI 


NATURAL VARIETIES OF NOSES 
AND EXPRESSIONS 


AESAR admitted before his conscience that he had no 

plans, or the slightest idea what direction to take. 

The Cardinal, no doubt, did not feel any desire to 
know him. 

Caesar often proceeded by more or less absurd hypotheses. 
“Suppose,” he would think, “that I had an idea, a concrete 
ambition. In that case it would behoove me to be reserved 
on such and such topics and to hint these and those ideas to 
people; let’s do it that way, even though it be only for sport.” 

Preciozi was the only person who was able to give him any 
light in his investigations, because the guests at the hotel, most 
of them, on account of their position, thought of nothing but 
amusing themselves and of giving themselves airs. 

Caesar discovered that Preciozi was ambitious; but besides 
lacking an opening, he had not the necessary vigour and 
imagination to do anything. 

The abbé spoke a macaronic Spanish, which he had learned 
in South America, and which provoked Caesar’s laughter. 
He was constantly saying: ‘My friend,’ and he mingled 
Gallicisms with a lot of coarse expressions of Indian or mulatto 
origin, and with Italian words. Preciozi’s dialect was a gib- 
berish worthy of Babel. 

The first day they went out together, the abbé wanted to 
show him divers of Rome’s picturesque spots. He led him 
behind the Quirinal, through the Via della Panetteria and the 
Via del Lavatore, where there is a fruit-market, to the Trevi 
fountain. 

66 


CONFIDENCES 67 


“Tt is beautiful, eh?” said the abbé. 

“ Yes; what I don’t understand,” replied Caesar, “is why, 
in a town where there is so much water, the hotel wash-basins 
are so small.” 

Preciozi shrugged his shoulders. 

“What types you have in Rome! ” Caesar went on. ‘ What 
a variety of noses and expressions! Jesuits with the aspect of 
savants and plotters; Carmelites with the appearance of high- 
way men; Dominicans, some with a sensual air, others with 
a professorial air. Astuteness, intrigue, brutality, intelligence, 
mystic stupor.... And as for priests, what a museum! 
Decorative priests, tall, with white shocks of hair and big 
cassocks; short priests, swarthy and greasy; noses thin as a 
knife; warty, fiery noses. Gross types; distinguished types; 
pale bloodless faces; red faces. . . . What a marvellous collec- 
tion! ” 

Preciozi listened to Caesar’s observations and wondered if 
the Cardinal’s nephew might be a trifle off his head. 

“Point out what is noteworthy, so that I may admire it 
enough,” Caesar told him. “I don’t care to burst out in an 
enthusiastic phrase for something of no value.” 

Preciozi laughed at these jokes, as if they were a child’s 
bright sayings; but at times Caesar appeared to him to be 
an innocent soul, and at other times a Machiavellian who 
dissembled his insidious purposes under an extravagant 
demeanour. 

When Preciozi was involved in some historic dissertation, 
Caesar used to ask him ingenuously: 

“ But listen, abbé; does this really interest you? ” 

Preciozi would admit that the past didn’t matter much to 
him, and then with one accord, they would burst out laugh- 
ing. 

Caesar said that Preciozi and he were the most anti-historic 
men going about in Rome. 

One morning they went to the Piazza del Campidoglio. It 
was drizzling; the wet roofs shone; the sky was grey. 

“This intrusion of the country into Rome,’ said Caesar, 


68 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“is what gives the city its romantic aspect. These hills with 
trees on them are very pretty.” 

“Only pretty, Don Caesar? They are sublime,” retorted 
Preciozi. 

“What amazement I shall produce in you, my dear abbé, 
when I tell you that all my knowledge in respect to the Capitol 
reduces itself to the fact that some orator, I don’t know who, 
said that near the Capitol is the Tarpeian Rock.” 

“You know nothing more about it?” 

“Nothing more. I don’t know if Cicero said that, or 
Castelar, or Sir Robert Peel.” 

Preciozi burst into merry laughter. 

“What statue is that?” asked Caesar, indicating the one 
in the middle of the square. 

“That is Marcus Aurelius.” 

“ An Emperor? ” 

“Yes, an Emperor and a philosopher.” 

“ And why have they made him riding such a little, pot- 
bellied horse? ” 

“T don’t know, man.” 

“ He looks like a man taking a horse to water at a trough. 
Why does he ride bare-back? Hadn’t they invented stirrups 
at that period? ” 

Preciozi was a bit perplexed; before making a reply he gazed 
at the statue, and then said, confusedly: 

“T think so.” 

They crossed the Piazza Campidoglio and went out by the 
left side of the Palazzo del Senatore. Down the Via dell’ 
Arco di Severo, a street that runs down steps to the Forum, 
they saw a large arch that seemed sunk in the ground, and 
beyond, further away, another smaller arch with only one 
archway, which arose in the distance as if on top of the big 
arch. A square yellow tower, burned by the sun, lifted itself 
among the ruins; some hills showed rows of romantic cypresses, 
and in the background the blue Alban Mountains stood out 
against a grey sky. 

“ Would you like to go down to the Forum? ” said the abbé. 


CONFIDENCES 69 


“ Down there where the stones are? No. What for?” 

“Do you wish to see the Tarpeian Rock? ” 

“Yes, man. But explain to me what this rock was.” 

Preciozi got together all his information, which was not 
much. 

They went by the Via Monte Tarpea, and came back by the 
Via della Consolazione. 

“They must have thrown people who were already dead off 
the Tarpeian Rock,” said Caesar, after hearing the explana- 
tion. 

“No, no.” 

“ But if they threw them down alive, the majority of those 
they chucked down here would not have died. At most they 
would have dislocated an arm, a leg, or a finger-joint. Unless 
they chucked them head first.” 

Preciozi could not permit the mortal effects of the Tarpeian 
Rock to be doubted, and he said that its height had been 
lessened and the level of the soil had risen. 

After these explanations Caesar found the spot of Roman 
executions somewhat less fantastic. 

“ How would you like to go to that church in the Forum? ” 
said Preciozi. 

“T was going to propose that we should go to the hotel; 
it must be lunch-time.” 

“Come along.” 


THE CHURCH AND COOKING 


Caesar had Marsala and Asti brought for the abbé, who was 
a gourmet. 

While Preciozi ate and drank with all his jaws, Caesar de- 
voted himself to teasing him. The waiter had brought some 
cream-puffs and informed them that that was a dish every one 
ate that day. Laura and Preciozi praised the puffs, and 
Caesar said: 

“What an admirable religion ours is! For each day the 
church has a saint and a special dish. The truth is that the 
Catholic Church is very wise; it has broken all relations with 


70 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


science, but it remains in harmony with cooking. As Preciozi 
was a moment ago saying with great exactitude, this close rela- 
tion that exists between the Church and the kitchen is moving.” 

“ T said that to you? ” asked Preciozi. ‘ What a falsehood! ” 

“Don’t pay any attention,” said Laura. 

“ Yes, my dear abbé,” retorted Caesar, “and I even believe 
that you added confidentially that sometimes the Pope in the 
Vatican gardens, imitating Francis I after the battle of Pavia, 
is wont to say sadly to the Secretary of State: ‘ All is lost, save 
faith and . . . good cooking.’ ” 

“What a bufone! What a bufone!” exclaimed Preciozi, 
with his mouth full. 

“You are giving a proof of irreligion which is in bad taste,” 
said Laura. “Only janitors talk like that.” 

“On such questions I am an honourary janitor.” 

“That’s all right, but you ought to realize that there are 
religious people here, like the abbé. . . .” 

“Preciozi? Why, he’s a Voltairean.” 

“Oh! Oh! My friend, .. .” exclaimed Preciozi, empty- 
ing a glass of wine. 

“ Voltaireanism,” continued Caesar. “There is nobody 
here who has faith, nobody who makes the little sacrifice of not 
eating on Fridays in Lent. Here we are, destroying with our 
own teeth one of the most beautiful works of the Church. 
You will both ask me what that work is... .” 

“No, we will not ask you anything,” said Laura, waving 
a hand in the air. 

“Well, it is that admirable alimentary harmony sustained 
by the Church. During the whole year we are authorized to 
eat terrestrial animals, and in Lent aquatic ones orly. Promis- 
cuous as we are, we are undoing the equilibrium between the 
maritime and the land forces, we are attacking the peaceful 
rotation of meat and fish.” » 

“ He is a child,” said Preciozi, ‘‘ we must leave him alone.” 

“Yes, but that will not impede my Spaniard’s heart, my 


CONFIDENCES 71 


Cardinal’s nephew’s heart from bleeding grievously ... 
Shall we go to the café, Abbé? ” 
“ Yes, let us go.” 


THE MARVELLOUS BIRD OF ROME 


They left the hotel and entered a café in the Piazza Esedra. 
Preciozi made a vague move to pay, but Caesar would not 
permit him to. 

“What do you wish to do?” said the abbé. 

“Whatever you like.” 

~“ T have to go to the Altemps palace a moment.” 

“To see my uncle? ” 

“Yes; then, if you feel like it, we can take a long walk.” 

“ Very good.” 

They went towards the centre of the town by the Via 
Nazionale. It was a splendid sunny afternoon. 

Preciozi went into the Altemps palace a moment; Caesar 
waited for him in the street. Then, together they went over 
to opposite the Castel Sant’ Angelo, crossed the river, and ap- 
proached the Piazza di San Pietro. The atmosphere was 
wonderfully clear and pure; the suave blue sky seemed to 
caress the pinnacles and decorations of the big square. 

Preciozi met a dirty friar, dark, with a black beard and a 
mouth from ear to ear. The abbé showed no great desire to 
stop and speak with him, but the other detained him. This 
party wore a habit of a brown colour and carried a big um- 
’ brella under his arm. 

“There’s a type!” said Caesar, when Preciozi rejoined him. 

“ Yes, he is a peasant,” the abbé said with disgust. 

“Tf that chap meets any one in the road, he plants his 
umbrella in his chest, and demands his money or his... 
eternal life.” 

“Yes, he is a disagreeable man,” agreed Preciozi. 

They continued their walk, through the Piazza Cavallegeri 
and outside the walls. As they went up one of the hills there, 
they could see the fagade of Saint Peter’s continually nearer, 
with all the huge stone figures on the cornice. 


72 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“The fact is that that poor Christ plays a sad rdéle there 
in the middle,” said Caesar. 

“Oh! Oh! My friend,” exclaimed the abbé in protest. 

“A plebeian Jew in the midst of so many princes of the 
Church! Doesn’t it strike you as an absurdity?” 

“No, not absurd at all.” 

“The truth is that this religion of yours is Jewish meat 
with a Roman sauce.” 

“And yours? What is yours?” 

“Mine? I have not got past fetichism. I worship the 
golden calf. Like the majority of Catholics.” 

“TI don’t believe it.” 

They looked back; they could see the dome of the great 
basilica shining in the sun; then, to one side, a little viaduct 
and a tower. 

“What a wonderful bird you keep in this beautiful cage! ” 
said Caesar. 

“What bird? ” asked Preciozi. 

“The Pope, friend Preciozi, the Pope. Not the popinjay, 
but the Pope in white. What a very marvellous bird! He has 
a feather fan like a peacock’s tail; he speaks like the cockatoo, 
only he differs from them in being infallible; and he is in- 
fallible, because another bird, also marvellous, which is called 
the Holy Ghost, tells him by night everything that takes place 
on earth and in heaven. What very picturesque and extrava- 
gant things! ” 

“For you who have no faith everything must be extrava- 
gant.” 

Caesar and Preciozi went on encircling the walls and read- 
ing the various marble tablets set into them, and ascended 
to the Janiculum, to the terrace where Garibaldi’s statue 
stands. 


POOR TINDARO 


“ But, are you anti-Catholic, seriously? ” asked Preciozi. 
“But do you believe any one can be a Catholic seriously? ” 


said Caesar. 
4 


CONFIDENCES 73 


““T can, yes; otherwise I shouldn’t be a priest.” 

“ But are you a priest because you believe, or do you make 
believe that you believe because you are a priest?” 

“You are a child. I suppose you hate the Jesuits, like all 
Liberals.” 

“ And I suppose you hate Masons, like all Catholics.” 

“ No.” 

“No more do I hate Jesuits. What is worse, I read the 
life of Saint Ignatius Loyola at school, and he seemed to me 
a great man.” 

“Well, I should think so! ” 

“ And the Jesuits have some power still? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Really? ” 

“Yes, man. They give the Church its direction. Oh, no- 
body fools the Society. You can see what happened to 
Cardinal Tindaro.” 

“I don’t know what did happen to him,” said Caesar, with 
indifference. 

“ Noe »” 

“ No.” 

“Well, Cardinal Tindaro decided to follow the inspirations 
of the Society and made many Jesuits Cardinals with the ob- 
ject that when Pope Leo XIII died, they should elect him 
Pope; but the Jesuits smelled the rat, and when Leo XIII got 
very ill, the Council of Assistants of the Society had a meet- 
ing and decided that Tindaro should not be Pope, and 
ordered the Austrian Court to oppose its veto. When the elec- 
tion came, the Jesuit Cardinals gave Tindaro a fat vote, out 
of gratitude, but calculated not to be enough to raise him to 
the throne, and in case it was, the Austrian Cardinal and the 
Hungarian had their Empire’s veto to Tindaro’s election in 
their pocket.” 

“ And this Tindaro, is he intelligent? ” 

“Yes, he is indeed; very intelligent. Style Leo XIII.” 

“Men of weight.” 

“Yes, but neither of the two had Pius IX’s spirit.” 


74 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“ And the present one? He is a poor creature, eh?” 

“T don’t know, I don’t know. . . .” 

“And the Society of Jesus, is it on good terms with this 
Pope? ” 

“Surely. He is their creation.” 

“So that the Society is really powerful? ” 

“Tt certainly is! Without a doubt! It has a pleasant rule, 
and obedience, and knowledge, and money. . . .” 

“Tt has money too, eh?” 

“Has it money? More than enough.” 

“And in what form? In paper?” 

“In paper, and in property, and industries; in steamship 
companies, in manufactories. . . .” 

“T would make an admirable business manager.” 

“ Well, your uncle, the Cardinal, could get you put in touch 
with the Society.” 

“Is he a friend of theirs? ” 

“Close as a finger-nail.” 

Caesar was silent a moment, and then said: 

“And I have heard that the Society of Jesus was, at 
bottom, an anti-Christian organization, a branch of 
Masonry. .. .” 

“ Macché!”’ exclaimed the abbé. ‘“ How could you believe 
that? Oh, no, my friend! What an absurdity! ” 

Then, seeing Caesar burst into laughter, he calmed him- 
self, wondering if he was making fun of him. 

They went down the hill, where the monument to Garibaldi 
flaunts itself, to the terrace of the Spanish Academy. 

The view was magnificent; the evening, now falling, was 
clear; the sky limpid and transparent. From that height the 
houses of Rome were spread out silent, with an air of solemnity, 
of immobility, of calm. It appeared a flat town; one did 
not notice its slopes and its hills; it gave the impression of 
a city in stone set under a glass globe. 

The sky itself, pure and diaphanous, augmented the sensa- 
tion of withdrawal and quietude; not a cloud on the horizon, 
not a spot of smoke in the air; silence and repose everywhere. 


CONFIDENCES 75 


The dome of St. Peter’s had the colour of a cloud, the shrub- 
beries on the Pincio were reddened by the sun, and the Alban 
Hills disclosed the little white towns and the smiling villas on 
their declivities. 

Preciozi pointed out domes and towers; Caesar did not hear 
him, and he was thinking, with a certain terror: 

“We shall die, and these stones will continue to shine in 
the sunlight of other winter evenings.” 


THE VATICAN FAMILY 


Making an effort with himself, he threw off this painful idea, 
and turning to Preciozi, asked: 

“So you believe that I might have made a nice career in 
the Church? ” 

“You! I certainly do think so!” exclaimed Preciozi. 
“With a cardinal for uncle, che carriera you could have 
made! ” 

“ But are there enough different jobs in the Church?” 

“From the Pope to the canons and the Papal Guards, you 
ought to see all the hierarchies we have at the Vatican. First 
the Pope, then the Cardinals in bishop’s orders, next, the 
Cardinals in priest’s orders, then the Cardinal’s in deacon’s 
orders, the Secretaries, the compisteria of the Holy College of 
Cardinals, the Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, and the 
Pontifical Family.” 

“Whose family is that? The Pope’s? ” 

“No; it is called that, as who should say, the General Staff 
of the Vatican. It is made up of the Palatine Cardinals, the 
Palatine Prelates, the Participating Privy Chamberlains, the 
Archbishops and Bishops assisting the Pontifical throne, the 
Domestic Prelates, who form the College of Apostolic Prothono- 
taries, the Pontifical Masters of Ceremonies, the Princes As- 
sisting the Throne, the Privy Participating Cape-and-Sword 
Chamberlains, the Privy Numbered Cape-and-Sword Cham- 
berlains. .. .” 

“ Cape-and-Sword! Didn’t I tell you that that poor Christ 


76 © CAESAR OR NOTHING 


plays a sorry part on the facade of Saint Peter’s? ” exclaimed 
Caesar. 

“ Why, man?” 

“ Because all this stuff about capes and swords doesn’t seem 
very fitting for the soul of a Christian. Unless, of course, the 
knights of the sword and cape do not use the sword to wound 
and the cape for a shield, but only wield the sword of Faith 
and the cape of Charity. . . . And haven’t you any gentlemen 
of Bed-and-Board, as they have at the Spanish Court? ” 

“ No.” 

“That’s a pity. It is so expressive, ... bed and board. 
Bed and board, cape and sword. Who wouldn’t be satisfied? 
One must admit that there is nobody equal to the Church, and 
next to her a monarchy, when it comes to inventing pretty 
things. That is why it is said, and very well said, that there 
is no salvation outside of the Church.” 

“You are a pagan.” 

“ And I believe you are one, too.” 

“ Macché!” 

“What comes after all those Privy Cape-and-Sword 
Chamberlains, my dear Abbé? ” 

“Next, there is the Pontifical Noble Guard, the Swiss 
Papal Guard, the Palatine Guard of Honour, the Corps of 
Papal Gendarmes, the Privy Chaplains, the Privy Clerics, the 
suite of His Holiness. Next come the members of the Palatine 
Administration, the Congregations, and more Secretaries.” 

“ And do the Cardinals live well? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“How much do they make? ” 

“They get twenty thousand lire fixed salary, besides 
extras.” 

“ But that is very little! ” 

“Certainly! It used to be much more, at the time of the 
Papal States. Out of their twenty thousand lire they have to 
keep a carriage.” 

“ Those that aren’t rich must have a hard time.” 

“ Just imagine, some of them have to live in a third-floor 


CONFIDENCES 77 


apartment. There have been some that bought their red robes 
second-hand.” 

“ Really? ” 

“ Really.” 

“ Are those robes so expensive? ” 

“Yes, they are expensive. Quite. They are made of a 
special cloth manufactured in Cologne.” 

“ Are there many Cardinals who are not of rich families? ” 

“A great many.” 

“Well, you people have ruined that job.” 

They went to Trastevere and there they took the tram. 
Preciozi got out at the Piazza Venezia and Caesar went on 
to the end of the Via Nazionale. 


A TALK ABOUT MONEY 


“ Where have you been?” asked Laura, on seeing him. 

“ T’ve been taking a walk with the abbé.” 

“It’s evident that you find him more interesting than us 
women.” 

“Preciozi is very interesting. He is a Machiavellian. He 
has a candour that is assumed and a dulness that is assumed. 
He plays a little comedy to get out of paying, at the café or 
in the tram. He is splendid. I think, if you will pardon me 
for saying so, that the Italians are damned close.” 

“People that have no money are forced to be economical.” 

“No, that isn’t so. I have known people in Madrid who 
made three pesetas a day, and spent two treating a friend.” 

“ Yes, out of ostentation, out of a desire to show off. I 
don’t like pretentious people.” 

“Well, I believe I prefer them to skinflints.” 

“Yes, that’s very Spanish. A man wasting money, while 
his wife and children are dying of hunger. . . . The man who 
won’t learn the value of money is not the best type.” 

“Money is filthy. If it were only possible to abolish it!” 

“For my part, son, I should like less to have it abolished 
than to have a great deal of it.” 


78 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“T shouldn’t. If I could carry out my plans, all I should 
need afterwards would be a hut to live in, a garret.” 

“Our ideas differ.” 

“These people that need clothes and jewels and perfumes 
fairly nauseate me. ... All such things are only fit for 
Jews.” 

“Then I must surely be a Jewess.” 


VIII 
OLD PALACES, OLD SALONS, OLD LADIES 


THE CARDINAL UNCLE 


S the Cardinal gave no indication of curiosity to see 
Caesar, Caesar several times said to Laura: 
“We ought to call on uncle, eh?” 

““Do as you choose. He isn’t very anxious to see you. 
Apparently he takes you for an unbeliever.” 

“ All right, that has nothing to do with calling on him.” 

“ Tf you like I will go with you.” 

- The Cardinal lived in the Palazzo Altemps. That palace 
is situated in the Via di S. Apollinare, opposite a seminary. 
The brother and sister proceeded to the palace one morning, 
went up the grand staircase, and in a reception-room they 
found Preciozi with two other priests, talking together in low 
tones. 

One was a worn, pallid old man, with his nose and the 
borders of his nasal appendage extremely red. Caesar con- 
sidered that so red a nose in that livid, ghastly face resembled 
a lantern in a melancholy landscape lighted by the evening 
twilight. This livid person was the house librarian. 

“His Eminence is very busy,” said Preciozi, after bowing 
to the callers. He spoke with a different voice from the one 
he used outside. “I will go in, in a moment, and see if you 
can see him.” 

Caesar stepped to the window of the reception-room: one 
could see the court of the old palace and the colonnade sur- 
rounding it. 

“This house must be very large,” he said. 

“You shall see it later, if you like,” replied the abbé. 

79 


80 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


A little after this Preciozi disappeared, and reappeared again 
in the opening of a glass door, saying, in the discreetly lowered 
voice which was no doubt that of his domestic functions: 

“This way, this way.” 

They went into a large, cold, shabby room. Through an 
open door they could see another bare salon, equally dark and 
sombre. 

The Cardinal was seated at a table; he was dressed as a 
monk and had the air of being in a bad humour. Laura went 
promptly to him and kissed his hand. Caesar bowed, and as 
the Cardinal did not deign to look at him, remained standing, 
at some distance from the table. 

Laura, after having saluted her uncle as a pillar of the 
Church, talked to him as a relative. The Cardinal cast a 
rapid glance at Caesar, and then, scowling somewhat less, 
asked him if his mother was well and if he expected to be 
long in Rome. 

Caesar, vexed by this frigid reception, answered shortly in a. 
few cold words, that all of them were well. 

The Cardinal’s secretary, who was by the window assisting 
at the interview, shot angry looks at Caesar. 

After a brief audience, which could not have lasted over 
five minutes, the Cardinal said, addressing Laura: 

“ Pardon me, my daughter, but I must go on with my work ”; 
and immediately, without a look at his nephew or his niece, 
he called the secretary, who brought him a portfolio of papers. 

Caesar opened the glass door for Laura to pass. 

“Would you like to see the palace?” Preciozi asked them. 
“ There are some antique statues, magnificent marbles, and a 
chapel where Saint Aniceto’s body is preserved.” 

“ Let’s leave Saint Aniceto’s body for another day,” Caesar 
replied sardonically. 

Laura and Caesar went down the stairway. 

“There was no need to come, to behave like that,” she said, 
upset. 

“ How so?” 

“How so! You behaved like a savage, no more nor less.” 


OLD PALACES, OLD SALONS 81 


“No, he was the one that behaved like a savage. I bowed 
to him, and he wasn’t willing even to look at me.” 

“You made up for it by staring at him as if he had been 
some curious insect in a cage.” 

“Tt was his fault for not being even barely polite to me.” 

“Do you think that a Cardinal is an ordinary person to 
whom you say: ‘Hello! How are you? How’s business?’” 

“T met an English Cabinet Minister in a club once and 
he was like anybody else.” 

“Tt’s not the same thing.” 

“Do you believe that perhaps our uncle considers that he 
fulfils a providential mission, a divine mission? ” 

“What a question! Of course he does.” 

_ “Then he is a poor idiot. However, it’s nothing to me. 
Our uncle is a stupid fool.” 

“You discovered that in such a little while? ” 

“Yes. Fanatical, vain, fatuous, pleased with himself... . 
He is of no use to me.” 

“ Ah, so you thought he would be of some use to you? ” 

** Why not?” 

Her brother’s arbitrary manner of taking things irritated 
and at the same time amused Laura. 

She believed that he made it a rule to persist in always doing 
the contrary to other people. 

Laura and her friends of both sexes used to run across one 
another in museums, out walking in the popular promenades, 
and at the races. Caesar didn’t go to museums, because 
he said he had no artistic feeling; races didn’t interest him 
either; and when it came to walking, he preferred to wander 
at random in the streets. 

As his memory was not full of historical facts, he experi- 
enced no great esthetic or archeological thrills, and no 
sympathy whatsoever with the various herds of tourists that 
went about examining old stones. 

At night, in the salon, he used to give burlesque descrip- 
tions, in his laconic French, of street scenes: the Italian 
soldiers with cock-feathers drooping from a sort of bowler 


82 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


hat, the porters of the Embassies and great houses, with their 
cocked hats, their blue great-coats, and the staff with a silver 
knob in their hands. 

The precise, jocose, biting report of his observations offended 
Laura and her lady friends. 

“ Why do you hate Italians so much?” the Countess Brenda 
asked him one day. 

“ But I don’t hate them.” 

“He speaks equally badly of everybody,” explained Laura. 
“ He has a bad character.” 

“Ts it because you have had an unhappy life? ” the Countess 
asked, interested. 

“No, I don’t think so,” said Caesar, feeling like smiling; 
instead of which, and without knowing why and without any 
reason, he put on a sad look. 


EXERCISES IN HYPOCRISY 


Laura, with her feminine perspicacity, noted that from that 
day on the Countess looked at Caesar a great deal and with 
melancholy smiles; and not only the mother appeared in- 
terested, but the daughter too. 

“T don’t know what it is in my brother,” thought Laura; 
“women are attracted to him just because he pays no atten- 
tion to them. And he knows it; yes, indeed he does, even 
thought he acts as if he were unconscious of it. Both mother 
and daughter taken with him! Carminatti has been routed.” 

The Countess quickly discovered a great liking for Laura, 
and as they both had friends in good Roman society, they 
made calls together. Laura was astonished enough to hear 
Caesar say that if there was no objection, he would go with 
them. 

“ But the majority of our friends are old ladies, devout old 
ladies.” 

“ All the better.” 

“ All right. But if you come, it is on condition that you say 
nothing that would shock them.” 


OLD PALACES, OLD SALONS~ 83 


o 


* Surely.” 

Caesar accompanied the Countess Brenda and his sister to 
various aristocratic houses, and at every one he heard the same 
conversation, about the King, the Pope, the Cardinals, and how 
few or how many people there were in the hotels. These 
topics, together with slanders, constituted the favourite motive 
for conversation in the great world. 

Caesar conversed with the somewhat flaccid old ladies (“ cas- 
tanae molles,” as Preciozi called them) with perfect hypocrisy; 
he regarded the classic decorations of the salons, and while he 
listened to rather strange French and to most elegant and pure 
Italian, he wondered if there might be somebody among all this 
Papal society whom he could use to forward his ambitions. 

Sometimes among the guests he would meet a young 
“monsignor,” discreetly smiling, whose emerald ring it was 
necessary to kiss. Caesar would kiss it and say to himself: 
“Let us practise tolerance with our lips.” 

In many of these salons the mania for the English game 
called “ bridge” had caught with great violence. 

Caesar hated card-games. For a man who made a study 
of the stock-exchange, the mechanism of a card-game was 
too stupid to arouse any interest. But he had no objection to 
playing and losing. 

The \Countesses Brenda and San Martino had “ bridge- 
mania” very hard, and they used to go to Brenda’s room in 
the evening to play. 

After playing bridge a week, Caesar found that his money 
was insensibly melting away. 

“Look here,” he said to Laura. 

“What is it? ” 

“You have got to teach me bridge.” 

“ T don’t know how to play, because I have no head for such 
things and I forget what cards have been played; but they 
gave me a little book on the game. I will lend it to you, if 
you like.” 

“Yes, give me it.” 

Caesar read the book, Marie’ the intricacies of the game, 


84 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


and the next few evenings he acquitted himself so well that 
- the Countess of San Martino marched off to her room with 
burning cheeks and almost in tears. 

“What a cad you are!” Laura said to him at lunch some 
days later, laughing. ‘‘ You are fleecing those women.” 

“Tt’s their own fault. Why did they take advantage of 
my innocence? ” 

“They have decided to go and play in Carminatti’s room 
without telling you.” 

“I’m glad of it.” 

“Do you know, bambino, I have to go away for a few days.” 

“ Where? ” 

“To Naples. Come with me.” 

“No; I have things to do here. I will take you to the 
station.” 

“ Ah, you rascal! You are a Don Juan.” 

“No, dear sister. I am a financier.” 

“I can see your victims from here. But I shall put them 
on their guard. You are a blood-thirsty hyena. You like to 
collect hearts the way the Red-skins did scalps.” 

“You mean coupons.” 

“No, hearts. You like to pretend to be simple, because 
you are wicked. I will tell the Countess Brenda and her 
daughter.” 

“What are you going to tell them?” 

“That you are wicked, that you have a hyena’s heart, that 
you want to ruin them.” 

“ Don’t tell them that, because it will make them fall in love 
with me. A hyena-hearted man is always run after by the 
ladies.” 

“You are right. Come along, go to Naples with me.” 

“Ts your husband such a terrible bore, little sister? ” 

“A little more cream and a little less impertinence, 
bambino,” said Laura, holding out her plate with a comic 
gesture. 

Caesar burst out laughing, and after lunch he took Laura 
to the station and remained in Rome alone. 


OLD PALACES, OLD SALONS 85 


His two chief occupations consisted in making love re- 
spectfully to the Countess Brenda and going to walk with 
Preciozi. 

The Countess Brenda was manifestly coming around; in the 
evening Caesar would take a seat beside her and start a serious 
conversation about religious and philosophical matters. The 
Countess was a well-educated and religious woman; but 
beneath all her culture one could see the ardent dark woman, 
still young, and with intense eyes. 

Caesar made it a spiritual training to talk to the Countess. 
She often turned the conversation to questions of love, and 
discussed them with apparent keenness and insight, but it 
was evident that all her ideas about love came out of novels. 
Beyond a doubt, her calm, vulgar husband did not fill up the 
emptiness of her soul, because the Countess was discontented 
and had a vague hope that somewhere, above or beneath the 
commonplaces of the day, there was a mysterious region where 
the ineffable reigned. ; 

Caesar, who hadn’t much faith in the ineffable, used to 
listen to her with a certain amazement, as if the plump, strong 
woman had been a visionary incapable of understanding 
reality. 

In the daytime Caesar went walking with Preciozi and they 
talked of their respective plans. 


SOLITARY WALKS 


Often Caesar went out alone, chewing the end of his 
thoughts as he strolled in the streets, working out possible 
schemes of investments or of politics. 

When he got away from the main streets, he kept finding 
some corner at every step that left him astonished at its 
fantastic, theatrical air. Suddenly he would discover him- 
self before a high wall, on top of which were statues covered 
with moss, or huge terra-cotta jars. Those decorations would 
stand out against the dark foliage of the Roman ilex and the 
tall, black cypresses. At the end of a street would rise a tall 


86 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


palm, drooping its branches over a little square, or a stone 
pine, like the one in the Aldobrandini garden. 

“These people were real artists,’ Caesar would murmur, 
and mean it as a fact, not taking it for either praise or blame. 

His curiosity got excited, despite his determination not to 
resemble a tourist in any way. The low windows of a palace 
would let him see lofty ceilings with great stretches of paint- 
ing, or decorated with medallions and legends; a balcony 
would display a thick curtain of ivy that hid the railings; 
here he would read a Latin inscription cut in a marble tablet, 
there he would come upon a black lane between two old houses, 
with a battered lantern at its entrance. In the part of town 
between the Corso and the Tiber, which is full of narrow, 
crooked old streets, he loved to wander until he was lost. 

Some details already familiar, he was delighted to see again; 
he always halted to look down the Via della Pillotta, with its 
arches over the street; and the little flower-market -in the 
Piazza di Spagna always gave him a sensation of joy. 

At dusk Caesar would walk in the centre of town; the bars 
filled up with people who loved to take cakes and sweet wine; 
on the sidewalks the itinerant merchants cried their trifling 
wares; along the Corso a procession of carriages full of tourists 
passed rapidly, and a few well-appointed victorias came driv- 
ing back from the Pincio and the Villa Borghese. 

Once in a while Caesar went out in the evening after dinner. 
There was scant animation in the streets, theatres didn’t in- 
terest him, and he would soon return to the hotel salon to chat 
with the Countess Brenda. 

Later, in his room, he would write to Alzugaray, giving him 
his impressions. 


IX 
NEW ACQUAINTANCES 


“I PROTESTANTI DELLA SIMPATIA” 


T began again to rain disastrously; the days were made 
up of downpours and squalls, to the great despair of the 
| foreigners. 

At night the Piazza Esedra was a fine sight from the hotel 
balcony. The arc lights reflected their glow in the lakes of 
rain beneath them, and the great jet of the fountain in the 
centre took on tones of blue and mother-of-pearl, where the 
rays of the electric light pierced through it. 

In the hotel parlour one dance followed another. Every- 
body complained gaily of the bad weather. 

Shortly before the middle of Lent there arrived a Parisian 
family at the hotel, composed of a mother with two daughters 
and a companion. 

This family might be considered a representation of the 
entente cordiale. ‘The mother was French, the widow first 
of a Spaniard, Sefior Sandoval, by whom she had had one 
daughter, and then of an Englishman, Mr. Dawson, by whom 
she had had another. 

Mme. Dawson was a fat, imposing lady, with tremendous 
brilliants in her ears and somewhat theatrical clothes; Mlle. 
Sandoval, the elder daughter, was of Arab type, with 
black eyes, an aquiline nose, pale rose-coloured lips, and a 
malicious smile, full of mystery, as if it revealed restless and 
diabolical intentions. . 

Her half-sister, Mlle. Dawson, was a contrast, being the 
perfect type of a grotesque Englishwoman, with a skin like a 
beet, and freckles. 

The governess, Mlle. Cadet, was not at all pretty, but she 
was gay and sprightly. 


88 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


These four women seated in the middle of the dining-room, 
a little stiff, a little out of temper, seemed, particularly the 
first few days, to defy anybody that might have wished to ap- 
proach them. They replied coolly to the formal bows of the 
other guests, and none of them cared to take part in the 
dances. 

The handsome Signor Carminatti shot incendiary glances 
at Mlle. de Sandoval; but she remained scornful; so one even- 
ing, as the Dawson family came out of the dining-room, the 
Neapolitan waved his hand toward them and said: 

“I protestanti della simpatia.” 

Caesar made much of this phrase, because it was apt, and 
he took it that Carminatti considered the ladies protestants 
against friendliness, because they had paid no attention to the 
charms that he displayed in their honour. 


CONSEQUENCES OF THE RAIN 


Two or three days later Mme. Dawson bowed to Caesar on 
passing him in the hall, and asked him: 
“ Aren’t you Spanish? ” 
“Yes, madam.” 
“ But don’t you speak French?” 
“ Very little.” 
“My daughter is Spanish too.” 
“She is a perfect Spanish type.” 
“ Really? ” asked the daughter referred to. 
“ Thoroughly.” 
“Then I am happy.” 
In the evening, after dinner, Caesar again joined Mme. 
Dawson and began to talk with her. The Frenchwoman had 
a tendency to philosophize, to criticize, and to find out every- 
thing. She had no great capacity for admiration, and nothing 
she saw suceeded in dragging warm eulogies from her lips. 
There was none of the “ bello! bellissimo!” of the Italian 
ladies in her talk, but a series of exact epithets. 

Mme. Dawson had left all her capacity for admiration in 
France, and was visiting Italy for the purpose of arriving as 


NEW ACQUAINTANCES 89 


soon as possible at the conclusion that there is no town like 
Paris, no nation like the French, and it didn’t matter much to 
Caesar whether he agreed or denied it. 

Mile. de Sandoval had a great curiosity about things in 
Spain and an absurd idea about everything Spanish. 

“Tt seems impossible,”’ thought Caesar, “ how stupid French 
people are about whatsoever is not French.” 

Mlle. de Sandoval asked Caesar a lot of questions, and 
finally, with an ironic gesture, said to him: 

“You mustn’t let us keep you from going to talk with the 
Countess Brenda. She is looking over at you a great deal.” 

‘Caesar became a trifle dubious; indeed, the Countess was 
looking at him in a fixed and disdainful way. 

“The Countess is a very intelligent woman,” said Caesar; 
“T think you would all like her very much.” 

Mme. Dawson said nothing; Caesar rose, took his leave of . 
the family, and went over to speak to the Countess and her 
daughter. She received him coldly. Caesar thought he would 
stay long enough to be polite and then get away, when Car- 
minatti, speaking to him in a very friendly way and calling 
him “mio caro,’ asked him to introduce him to Mme. Daw- 
son. 

He did so, and when he had left the handsome Neapolitan 
leaning back in a chair beside the French ladies, he made the 
excuse that he had a letter to write, and said good-night. 

“T see that you are an ogre,” said Mlle. de Sandoval. 

“Do you want me for anything? ” 

“No, no; you may go when you choose.” 

Caesar repaired to his room. 

“T don’t mind those people,” he said; “ but if they think 
I am a man made for entertaining ladies, they are very 
clever.” 

The next day Mme. Dawson talked with Caesar very affably, 
and Mlle. de Sandoval made a few ironical remarks about his 
savage ways. 

Of all the family Caesar conceived that Mlle. Cadet was the 
most intelligent. 


90 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


She was a French country girl, very jovial, blond, with a 
turned-up nose, and on the whole insignificant looking. When 
she spoke, her voice had certain falsetto inflexions that were 
very comical. 

Mlle. Cadet was on to everything the moment it happened. 
Caesar asked her jokingly about the people in the hotel, and 
he was thunderstruck to find that she had discovered in three 
or four days who all the guests were and where they came 
from. 

Mlle. Cadet also told him that Carminatti had sent an ardent 
declaration of love to the Sandoval girl the first day he saw 
her. 

“The devil! ” exclaimed Caesar. ‘ What an inflammable 
Neapolitan it is! And what did she reply?” 

“What would she reply? Nothing.” 

“As you are already familiar with everything going on 
here,” said Caesar, “I am going to ask you a question: what 
is the noise in the court every night? I am always thinking 
of asking somebody.” 

“Why, it is charging the accumulator of the lift,” replied 
Mile. Cadet. 

“You have relieved me from a terrible doubt which worried 
me.” 

“ T have never heard a noise,” said Mlle. de Sandoval, break- 
ing into the conversation. 

“That’s because your room is on the square,” Caesar an- 
swered, “‘ and the noise is in the court; on the poor side of the 
house. 

“Pshaw! There is no reason to complain,’’ remarked Mlle. 
Cadet, “if they give us a serenade.” 

“Do you consider yourself poor? ” Mlle. de Sandoval asked 
Caesar, disdainfully. 

“Yes, I consider myself poor, because I am.” 

During the following days Mme. Dawson and her daughters 
were introduced to the rest of the people in the hotel, and be- 
came intimate with them. The “ Contessina” Brenda and the 
San Martino girls made friends with the French girls, and the 


NEW ACQUAINTANCES gl 


Neapolitan and his gentlemen friends flitted among them all. 

The Countess Brenda at first behaved somewhat stiff with 
Mme. Dawson and her daughters, but later she little by little 
submitted and permitted them to be her friends. 

She introduced the French ladies to the other ladies in the 
hote?; but doubtless her aristocratic ideas would not allow 
her to consider Mlle. Cadet a person worthy to be introduced, 
for whenever she got to her she acted as if she didn’t know 
her. 

The governess, noticing this repeated contempt, would blush 
at it, and once she murmured, addressing Caesar with tears 
ready to escape from her eyes: 

_ “That’s a nice thing todo! Just because I am poor, I don’t 
think they ought to despise me.” 

“ Don’t pay any attention,” said Caesar, quite aloud; “ these 
middle-class people are often very rude.” 

Mlle. de Sandoval gave Caesar a look half startled and half 
reproving; and he explained, smiling: 

“‘T was telling Mile. Cadet a funny story.” 

Mme. Dawson and her daughters soon became friends with 
the most distinguished persons in the hotel; only the Marchesa 
Sciacca, the Maltese, avoided them as if they inspired her with 
profound contempt. 

In a few days the Countess Brenda and Caesar’s friendship 
passed beyond the bonds of friendship; but in the course of 
time it cooled off again. | 


INFLUENCE OF THE INCLINATION 
OF THE EARTH’S AXIS ON WHAT 
IS CALLED LOVE 


One evening, when the Countess Brenda’s daughter had left 
Rome to go with her father to a villa they owned in the North, 
the Countess and Caesar had a long conversation in the salon. 
They were alone; a great tenor was singing at the Costanzi, 
and the whole hotel was at the theatre. The Countess chatted 
with Caesar, she reclining in a chaise longue, and he seated 
in a low chair. 


92 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


That evening the Countess was feeling in a provocative 
humour, and she made fun of Caesar’s mode of life and his 
ideas, not with the phrases and the manners of a great lady, 
but with the boldness and spice of a woman of the people. 

The angle that the earth’s axis makes with the trajectory of 
the ecliptic, and which produces those absurd phenomena that 
we Spaniards call seasons, determined at that period the arrival 
of spring, and spring had no doubt shaken the Countess 
Brenda’s nerves. 

Spring gave cooling inflexions to the lady’s voice and made 
her express herself with warmth and with a shamelessly liber- 
tine air. 

No doubt the core of her personality was joyful, provoking, 
and somewhat licentious. 

Her eyes flashed, and on her lips there was a sensual ex- 
pression of challenge and mockery. 

Caesar, that evening, without knowing why, was dull at 
expressing himself, and depressed. Some of the Countess’s 
questions left him in a stupid unreadiness. 

“ Poor child; I am sorry for you,” she suddenly said. 

“ Why? ” 

“ Because you are so weak; you have such an air of exhaus- 
tion. What do you do to make you like this? I am sure 
you ought to be given some sort of iron tonic, like the anaemic 
girls.” 

“Do you really think I am so weak? ” asked Caesar. 

“Isn’t it written all over you? ” 

“ Well, anyway, I am stronger than you, Countess.” 

“In a discussion, perhaps. But otherwise. . . . You have 
no strength except in your brains.” 

“And in my hands. Give me your hand.” 

The Countess gave him her hand and Caesar pressed it 
tighter and tighter. 

“You are strong after all,” she said. 

“That is nothing. You wait,” and Caesar squeezed the 
Countess’s hand until he made her give a sharp scream, A 
servant entered the salon. 


NEW ACQUAINTANCES 93 


“ It’s nothing,” said the Countess, getting up; “I seemed to 
have turned my foot.” 

“‘T will take you to your room,” exclaimed Caesar, offering 
her his arm. 

“No, no. Thanks very much.” 

“Yes. It has to be.” 

“Then, all right,” she murmured, and added, “ Now you 
frighten me.” 

“ Bah, you will get over that!’ and Caesar went into her 
room with her... . 

The next day Caesar appeared in the salon looking as if he 
had been buried and dug up. 

“What is the matter?’ Mme. Dawson and her daughters 
asked him. 

“Nothing; only I had a headache and I took a big dose of 
antipyrine.” 

The relations of the Brenda lady and Caesar soon cooled. 
' Their temperaments were incompatible: there was no harmony 
between their imaginations or between their skins. In reality, 
the Countess, with all her romanticism, did not care for long 
and compromising liaisons, but for hotel adventures, which 
leave neither vivid memories nor deep imprints. Caesar noted 
that despite her lyricism and her sentimental talk, there was 
a great deal of firmness in this plump woman, and a lack of 
sensitiveness. 

Moreover, this woman, so little aristocratic in intimacy, had 
much vanity about stupid things and a great passion for 
jewelry; but what contributed most to making Caesar feel 
a profound hatred for her was his discovering what good 
health she enjoyed. This good health seemed offensive to 
Caesar, above all when he compared it to his own, to his weak 
nerves and his restless brain. 

From considering her a spiritual and delicate lady he passed 
to considering her a powerful mare, which deserved no more 
than a whip and spurs. 

The love-affair contributed to upsetting Caesar and making 
him more sarcastic and biting. 


94 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


This spiritual ulceration of Caesar’s profoundly astonished 
Mile. Cadet. 

One day a Roman aristocrat, nothing less than a prince, 
came to call on Mme. Dawson. He talked with her, with her 
daughters, and the Countess Brenda, and held forth about 
whether the hotels in Rome were full or empty, about the pen- 
sions, and the food in the restaurants, with a great wealth 
of details; afterwards he lamented that Mme. Dawson, as a 
relative of his, even though a very distant one, should have gone 
to a ricevimento at the French Embassy, and he boasted of 
belonging to the Black party in Rome. 

When he was gone, Mlle. Cadet came over to Caesar, who 
was sunk in an arm-chair gazing at the ceiling, and asked 
him: 

. “What did you think of the prince? ” 

“ What prince? ” 

“The gentleman who was here talking a moment ago.” 

“ Ah, was he a prince? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“As he talked about nothing but hotels, I took him to be 
the proprietor of one.” 

Mille. Cadet told Mme. Dawson what Caesar had said, and 
she and her daughters were amused at his error. 


x 
A BALL 


LITTLE later than the real day, they got up a ball at 
the hotel in celebration of the French holiday Mi- 


caréme. 

When Caesar was asked if he thought of going to 
the ball, he said no; but Mlle. de Sandoval warned him that 
if he didn’t go she would never speak to him again, and Mme. 
Dawson and the governess threatened him with like excom- 
munication. 

“But you know, these balls are very amusing,” said Mme. 
Dawson. 

“Do you think so?” 

“I do, and so do you.” 

“ Besides, an observer like you,’’ added Mlle. Cadet, “can 
devote himself to taking notes.” 

“ And why do you conclude that I am an observer? ” asked 
Caesar. 

“The idea! Because it is evident.” 

“And an observer with very evil intentions,” insisted Mlle. 
de Sandoval. 

“ You credit me with qualities I haven’t got.” 

Caesar had to accede, and the Dawson ladies and he were 
the first to enter the salon and take their seats. In one corner 
was a glass vase hung from the ceiling by a pulley. 

“What is that?” Mme. Dawson asked a servant. 

“ Tt is a glass vase full of bonbons, which you have to break 
with a pole with your eyes closed.” 

“ Ah, yes.” 

Since nobody else came in, the Dawson girls and Caesar 
wandered about looking into the cupboards and finding the 
Marchesa Sciacca’s music and the Neapolitan’s. 

95 


96 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


They looked out one of the salon windows. It was a detest- 
able night, raining and hailing; the great drops were bouncing 
on the sidewalks of the Piazza Esedra. Water and hail fell 
mixed together, and for moments at a time the ground would 
stay white, as if covered with a thin coating of pearls. 

The fountain in the centre cast up its streams of water, 
which mingled with the rain, and the central jet shone in the 
rays of the arc-lights; now and again the livid brilliance of 
lightning illuminated the stone arches and the rumbling of 
thunder was heard... . 

Still nobody else came to the salon. Doubtless the ladies 
were preparing their toilets very carefully. 

The first to appear, dressed for the ball, were the Marchesa 
Sciacca and her husband, accompanied by the inevitable Car- 
minatti. ; 

The Marchesa, with her habitual brutality toward everybody 
that lived in the house, bowed with formal coolness to Mme. 
Dawson, and sat down by the piano, as far away as possible 
from the French ladies. 

She wore a gown of green silk, with lace and gold ornaments. 
She was very décolletée and had a fretful air. Her husband 
was small and stooped, with a long moustache and shiny eyes; 
on his cheek-bones were the red spots frequent in consumptives, 
and he spoke in a sharp voice. 

“Are you acquainted with the Marquis?” Mme. Dawson 
asked Caesar. 

“Yes, he is a tiresome busybody,” said Caesar, “ the most 
boresome fellow you could find. He stops you in the street to 
tell you things. The other day he made me wait a quarter 
of an hour at the door of a tourist agency, while he inquired 
the quickest way of getting to Moscow. ‘Are you thinking of 
going there?’ I asked him. ‘No; I just wanted to find 
out... .’ He is an idiot.” 

“God preserve us from your comments. What will you be 
saying about us?” exclaimed Mlle. de Sandoval. 

The Countess Brenda entered, with her husband, her 
daughter, and a friend. She was dressed in black, low in the 


A BALL 97 


neck, and wore a collar of brilliants as big as filberts, which 
surrounded her bosom with rays of light and blinding reflec- 
tions. 

Her friend was a young lady of consummate beauty; a 
brunette with colour in her skin and features of flawless per- 
fection; with neither the serious air nor the statuesqueness of a 
great beauty, and with none of the negroid tone of most 
brunettes. When she smiled she showed her teeth, which were 
a burst of whiteness. She was rather loaded with jewels, 
which gave her the aspect of an ancient goddess. 

“You, who find everything wrong,” said Mlle. Cadet to 
Caesar, “ what have you to say of that woman? I have been 
looking at her ever since she came in, and I don’t find the 
slightest defect.” 

“Nor I. It is a face which gives no indication that the 
least shadow of sorrow has ever crossed it. It is beauty as 
serene as a landscape or as the sea when calm. Moreover, 
that very perfection robs it of character. It seems to be less 
a human face than a symbol of an apathetic being and an 
apathetic beauty.” 

“We have found her defect,” said Mlle. Cadet. 

After introducing her friend to the ladies and to the young 
men, who were all dazzled, the Countess Brenda sat down 
near Mme. Dawson, in an antique arm-chair. 

She was imposing. 

“You look like a queen holding audience,” Mlle. de San- 
doval said to her. 

“Your beloved is like an actual monument,” Mlle. Cadet 
murmured jokingly, aside to Caesar. 

“Yes, I think we ought to station a veteran at the door,” 
retorted Caesar. 

“A veteran! No, for mercy’s sake! Poor lady! A war- 
rior in active service, one on whom all the antipyrine in the 
world would make no impression,’ Mlle. Cadet replied 
maliciously. 

Caesar smiled at the illusion. 


98 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


SILENO MACARRONI 


Among the people there was one gentleman that attracted 
Mlle. Cadet’s special attention. He was apart from any 
group, but he knew everybody that arrived, This gentleman 
was fat, smiling, smooth-shaven, with a round, chubby, rosy 
face and the body of a Silenus. When he spoke he arched and 
lowered his eyebrows alternately, rolled his eyes, gesticulated 
with his fat, soft hands, and smiled and showed his teeth. 

His way of greeting people was splendid. 

“Come sta, marchesa?” he would say. “ Cavaliere!” 
“ Commendatore!” “ La contessina va bene?” “Oh! Egre- 
gio!” 

And the good gentleman would spread his arms, and close 
them, and look as if he wanted to embrace the whole of 
humanity to his abdomen, covered with a white waistcoat. 

“Who can that gentleman be? ” Mile. Cadet asked various 
times. 

“That? That is Signor Sileno Macarroni,” said Caesar, 
“Commander of the Order of the Mighty Belly, Knight of the 
Round Buttocks, and of other distinguished Orders.” 

“He is a singer,” said the Countess Brenda to Mlle. de 
Sandoval in a low tone. 

“He is a singer,” repeated Mlle. de Sandoval to her gov- 
erness in a similar tone. 

“ Sileno Macarroni is a singer,” said Mlle. Cadet, with equal 
mysteriousness, addressing Caesar. 

“ But is our friend Macarroni going to sing? ” asked Caesar. 

The question was passed from one person to another, and it 
was discovered that Macarroni was going to sing. As a matter 
of fact, the fat Silenus did sing, and everybody was startled 
to hear a high tenor voice issue from within that voluminous 
human being. The fat Silenus had the misfortune to sing 
false in the midst of his bravest trills, and the poor soul was 
overcome, despite the applause. 

“Poor Macarroni! ” said Caesar, “ his high tenor heart must 
be broken to bits.” 


kB BALE: 99 


“ He is going,” put in Mlle. Cadet. ‘“ What a shame! ” 
Sileno vanished and the pianist began to play waltzes. 


THE WORLD AS A ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN 


Carminatti was the first on the floor with his partner, who 
was the Marchesa Sciacca. 

The Maltese lady danced with an abandon and a feline 
languor that imposed respect. One of the San Martino girls, 
dressed in white, like a vaporous fairy, danced with an officer 
in a blue uniform, a slim, distinguished person with languid 
eyes and rosy cheeks, who caused a veritable sensation among 
the ladies. 

The other San Martino, in pale pink, was on a sofa chatting 
with a man of the cut-throat type, of jaundiced complexion, 
with bright eyes and a moustache so long as almost to touch 
his eyebrows. 

“He is a Sicilian,” Mlle. Cadet told Caesar; “ behind us 
here they are aaying. rather curious things about the two of 
them.” 

The Countess Brenda’s daughter was magnificent, with her 
‘ milk-white skin, and her arms visible through gauze. Despite 
her beauty she didn’t count many admirers; she was too in- 
sipid, and the majority of the young men turned with greater 
enthusiasm to the married women and to those of a very pro- 
vocative type. 

Mile. de Sandoval, the most sought after of all, didn’t wish 
to dance. 

“My daughter is really very stiff,”” Mme. Dawson remarked. 
“ Spanish women are like that.” 

“Yes, they often are,” said Caesar. 

Among all these Italians, who were rather theatrical and 
ridiculous, insincere and -exaggerated, but who had great 
pliancy and great agility in their movements and their ex- 
pression, there was one German family, consisting of several 
persons: a married couple with sons and daughters who seemed 
to be all made from one piece, cut from the same block. 


100 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


While the rest were busy with the little incidents of the ball, 
they were talking about the Baths of Caracalla, the aqueducts, 
the Colosseum. The father, the mother, and the children re- 
peated their lesson in Roman archeology, which they had 
learned splendidly. 

“What very absurd people they are,” murmured Caesar, 
watching them. 

“ Why?” said Mlle. de Sandoval. 

“Tt appeals to these Germans as their duty to make one 
parcel of everything artistic there is in a country and swallow 
it whole; which seems to an ignoramus like me, a stupid piece 
of pretentiousness. The French, on the contrary, are on more 
solid ground; they don’t understand anything that is not 
French, and they travel to have the pleasure of saying that 
Paris is the finest thing on earth.” 

“It’s great luck to be so perfect as you are,” retorted Mlle. 
de Sandoval, violently, “ you can see other people’s faults so 
clearly.” 

“You mistake,” replied Caesar, coldly, “I do not rely on 
my own good qualities to enable me to speak badly of others.” 

“Then what do you rely on?” 

“On my defects.” 

“ Ah, have you defects? Do you admit it?” 

“T not only admit it, but I take pride in having them.” 

Mille. de Sandoval turned her head away contemptuously; the 
twist Caesar gave to her questions appeared to irritate her. 

“Mlle. de Sandoval doesn’t like me much,” said Caesar to 
Mlle. Cadet. 

“No? She generally says nice things about you.” 

“Perhaps my clothes appeal to her, or the way I tie my 
cravat; but my ideas displease her.” 

“ Because you say such severe things.” 

“Why do you say that at this moment? Because I spoke 
disparagingly of those Germans? Are they attractive to 
you? ” 

“Oh, no! Not at all.” 

“They look like hunting dogs.” 


A BALL 101 


** But whom do you approve of? The English?” 

“ Not the English, either. They are a herd of cattle; senti- 
mental, ridiculous people who are in ecstatics over their 
aristocracy and over their king. Latin peoples are something 
like cats, they are of the feline race; a Frenchman is like a 
fat, well-fed cat; an Italian is like an old Angora which has 
kept its beautiful fur; and the Spaniard is like the cats on a 
roof, skinny, bare of fur, almost too weak to howl with despair 
and hunger. . . . Then there are the ophidians, the Jews, the 
Greeks, the Armenians. .. .” 

“Then for you the world is a zoological garden? ” 

“Well, isn’t it?” 

At midnight they tried to break the glass jar of bonbons. 
They blindfolded various men, and one by one they made them 
turn around a couple of times and then try to break the jar 
with a stick. 

It was the Marquis Sciacca that did break the glass vase, 
and the pieces fell on his head. 

“ Have you hurt yourself?” people asked him. 

“No,” said Caesar, reassuringly, but aside; “his head is 
protected.” 


CHIROMANTIC INTERLUDE 


After this cornucopia number, there was a series of other 
games and amusements, which required a hand-glass, a candle, 
and a bottle. The conversation in Mlle. de Sandoval’s group 
jumped from one thing to another and finally arrived at 
palmistry. 

Mile. de Sandoval asked Caesar if he, as a Spaniard, knew 
how to tell fortunes by the hand, and he jokingly replied 
that he did. Three or four hands were stretched out toward 
Caesar, and he said whatsoever his imagination suggested, 
foolishness, absurdities, impertinences; a little of everything: 

When anybody was a bit puzzled at Caesar’s words, he said: 

“Don’t pay any attention to it; these are absurdities.” 

Afterwards Mlle. Cadet told Caesar that she was going to 
cast his horoscope. 


102 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“Good! Out with it.” 

The governess, who was clever, studied Caesar’s hand and 
expressed herself in sibylline terms: 

“You have something of everything, a little of some things 
and a great deal of others; you are not a harmonious in- 
dividual.” 

“ No? ” 

“No. You are very intelligent.” 

“Thank you.” 

“ Let the sibyl talk,” said the Sandoval girl. 

“You have a strong sense of logic,” the governess went on. 

“That’s possible.” 

“You are good and bad! You have much imagination and 
very little; you are at the same time very brave and very timid. 
You have a loving nature, but it is asleep, and little will- 
power.” 

“Little and . . . a great deal,” said Caesar. 

* No, little.” 

“Do you believe that I have little will-power? ” 

“T am telling you what your hand says.” 

“Look here. My hand’s opinion doesn’t interest me so 
much as yours, because you are an intelligent woman. Do you 
believe I have no will-power? ” 

“A sibyl doesn’t discuss her affirmations.” 

“Now you are worried about your lack of will-power,” said 
Mlle. de Sandoval, mockingly. 

“Yes, I am, a bit.” 

“ Well, I think you have will-power enough,” she retorted; 
“ what you do lack is a little more amiability.” 

“Fortunately for you and for me, you are not so pers- 
picacious in psychology as this young lady.” 

“T don’t expect to earn my living telling fortunes.” 

“T don’t believe this young lady expects to, either. You 
have told me what I am,” Caesar pursued; “ now tell me what 
is going to happen to me.” 

“Let me look,” said Mlle. Cadet; “close your hand. You 
will make a journey.” 


A BALL 103 


“Very good! I like that.” 

“You will get into a desperate struggle... ” 

*“T like that, too.” 

“And you will win, and you will be defeated. . . .” 

“T don’t like that so much.” ; 

Mlle. Cadet could not give other details. Her sibylline 
science extended no further. During this chiromantic inter- 
lude, the dancing kept up, until finally, about three in the 
morning, the party ended. 


XI 
A SOUNDING-LINE IN THE DARK WORLD 


THE ADVICE OF TWO ABBES 


E Abbé Preciozi several times advised Caesar to 
make a new attempt at a reconciliation with the 
Cardinal; but Caesar always refused. 

“He is a man incapable of understanding me,” he would in- 
sist with naive arrogance. 

Preciozi felt a great liking for his new friend, who invited 
him to meals at good hotels and treated him very frequently. 
Almost every morning he went to call on Caesar on one pretext 
or another, and they would go for a walk and chat about 
various things. 

Preciozi was beginning to believe that his friend was a man 
with a future. Some explanations that Caesar gave him about 
the mechanism of the stock-exchange convinced the abbé that 
he was in the presence of a great financier. 

Preciozi talked to all his friends and acquaintances about 
Cardinal Fort’s nephew, picturing him as an extraordinary 
man; some took these praises as a joke; others thought that it 
was really very possible that the Spaniard had great talent; 
only one abbé, who was a teacher in a college, felt a desire to 
meet the Cardinal’s nephew, and Preciozi introduced him to 
Caesar. 

This abbé was named Cittadella, and he was fat, rosy, and 
blond; he looked more like a singer than a priest. 

Caesar invited the two abbés to dine at a restaurant and re- 
quested Preciozi to do the ordering. 

“So you are a nephew of Cardinal Fort’s?” asked Citta- — 
della. 

104 


A SOUNDING-LINE 105 


“ Yes.”’ 

“His own nephew? ” 

“His own nephew; son of his sister.” 

“ And he hasn’t done anything for you?” 

“ Nothing.” 

“Tt’s a pity. He is a man of great influence, of great 
talent.” 

“‘ Influence, I believe; talent, I doubt,” said Caesar. 

“Oh, no, no! He is an intelligent man.” 

“ But I have heard that his Theological Commentaries is 
absolutely absurd.” 

“No, no.” 

“A crude, banal book, full of stupidities. . . .” 

“ Macché!” exclaimed the indignant Preciozi, neglecting 
the culinary conflict he was engaged in. 

“ All right. It makes no difference,” replied Caesar, smil- 
ing. ‘“‘ Whether he is a famous man, as you two say, or a 
blockhead, as I think, the fact remains that my uncle doesn’t 
wish to have anything to do with me.” 

“You must have done something to him,” said Cittadella. 

“No; the only thing is that when I was small they told me 
the Cardinal wished me to be a priest, and I answered that I 
didn’t care to be.” 

“ And why so?” 

“It seems to me a poor job. It’s evident that one doesn’t 
make much at it.” 

Cittadella sighed. 

“Yes, and what’s more,” Preciozi put in, “this gentleman 
says to anybody who cares to listen, that religion is a farce, 
that Catholicism is like a dish of Jewish meat with Roman 
sauce. Is it possible that a Cardinal should bother about a 
nephew that talks like that? ” 

The Abbé Cittadella looked very serious and remarked that 
it is necessary to believe, or at least to seem to believe, in the 
truths of religion. 

_ “Ts the Cardinal supposed to have money? ’’ asked Caesar. 

“Yes, I should say he is,” replied Preciozi. 


? 


106 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“Your sister and you will be the only heirs,” said Citta- 
della. 

“OF course,” agreed Preciozi. 

“Has he made a will? ” asked Caesar. 

* All the better if he hasn’t,” said one of the abbés. 

“Tf we could only poison him,” sighed Caesar, with 
melancholy. 

“ Don’t talk of such things just as we are going to eat,” said 
Preciozi. ; 

The dinner was brought, and the two abbés did it the honour 
it deserved. 

Preciozi deserved congratulations for his excellent selection. 
They ordered good wines and drank merry toasts. 

“What an admirable secretary Preciozi would be, if I got 
to be a personage!” exclaimed Caesar. “‘ Twenty thousand 
francs or so salary, his board, and the duty of choosing the 
dinner for the next day. That’s my proposal.” 

The abbé blushed with pleasure, emptied his glass of wine, 
and murmured: 

“Tf it depended on me! ” 

“The fact is that the way things are arranged today is no 
good,” said Caesar. “A hundred years ago, by the mere fact 
of being a Cardinal’s nephew, I should have been somebody.” 

“That’s true,” exclaimed Preciozi. 

“ And as I should have no scruples, and neither would you 
two, we would have plunged into life strenuously, and sacked 
Rome, and the whole world would be ours.” 

“You talk like a Caesar Borgia,” said Preciozi, aroused. 
“ You are a true Spaniard.” 

“Today one must have something to stand on,” said Citta- 
della, coldly. 

“Friend Cittadella,” retorted Caesar, “I, as you see me 
here, am the man who knows the most about financial matters 
in all Spain, and I believe I shall soon get to where I can say, 
in all Europe. I put my knowledge at the service of whoever 
pays me. I am like one of your old condottieri, a mercenary 
general, I am ready to win battles for the Jewish bank, or 


A SOUNDING-LINE 107 


against the Jewish bank, for the Church or against the 
Church.” 

“For the Church is better. Against the Church we cannot 
assist you,” said Preciozi. 

“JT will try first, for the Church. To whom can you 
recommend me first? ” 

The two abbés said nothing, and drank in silence. 

“Perhaps Verry would see him,” said Cittadella. 

“Hm! .. .” replied Preciozi. “I rather doubt it.” 

“What sort of a party is he? ” asked Caesar. 

“He is one of those prelati that come out of the College 
of Nobles,” said Cittadella, “‘ and who get on, even if they are 
no good. Here they consider him a haughty Spaniard; they 
blame him for wearing his robes, and for always taking an 
automobile when he goes to Castel Gandolfo. The priests hate 
him because he is a Jesuit and a Spaniard.” 

“ And wherein does his strength lie? ” 

“In the Society, and in his knowing several languages. He 
was educated in England.” 

“From what you two tell me of him, he gives me the im- 
pression of a fatuous person.” 

A bottle of champagne was brought in and the three of them 
drank, toasting and touching glasses. 

“Tf I were in your place,” said Cittadella, after thinking 
a long while, “I shouldn’t try to get at people in high places, 
but people who are inconspicuous and yet have influence in 
your country.” 

“For instance... .” 

“For instance, Father Herreros, at the convent in Traste- 
vere.” 

“ And Father Mird too,” added Preciozi, “‘ and if you could 
talk to Father Ferrer, of the Gregorian University, it wouldn’t 
be a bad idea.” 

“That will be more difficult,’ said Cittadella. 

“ You could tell them,” Preciozi suggested, “ that your uncle 
the Cardinal sent you, and hint that he doesn’t want any- 
body to know that he is backing you.” 


108 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“ And if somebody should write to my uncle? ” 

“You mustn’t say anything definite. You must speak 
ambiguously. Besides, in case they did write, we would fix it 
up in the office.” 

Caesar began to laugh naively. Afterwards, the two abbés, 
a little excited by the food and the good wine, started in to 
have a violent discussion, speaking Italian. Caesar paid the 
bill, and pretending that he had an urgent engagement, took 
leave of them and went out. 


A SPANISH MONK 


The next day Caesar went to look up Father Herreros. He 
had not yet succeeded in forming a plan. His only idea was 
to see if he could take advantage of some chance: to follow 
a scent and be on the alert, in case something new should 
start up on one side or the other. 

Father Herreros lived in a convent in Trastevere. Caesar 
took the tram in the Piazza Venezia, and got out after cross- 
ing the Tiber, near the Via delle Fratte. 

He soon found the convent; it had a yellow portal with a 
Latin inscription which sang the gymnastic glories of Saint 
Pascual Bailon. Above the inscription there was a picture, in 
which a monk, no doubt Bailén, was dancing among the 
clouds. 

On the lintel of the gate were the arms of Spain, and at the 
sides, two medallions bearing hands wounded in the palm. 

The convent door was old and quartered. Caesar knocked. 

A lay-brother, with a suspicious glance, came out to admit 
him, told him to wait, and left him alone. After some while, 
he came back and asked him to follow him. 

They went down a small passage and up a staircase, which 
was at the end, and then along a corridor on the main floor. 
On one side of this corridor, in his cell, they found Father 
Herreros. 

Caesar, after bowing and introducing himself, sat down, as the 
monk asked him to do, in a chair with its back to the light. 


A SOUNDING-LINE 109 


Caesar began to explain why he had come, and as he had 
prepared what he was going to say, he employed his attention, 
while speaking, on the cage and the kind of big bird which 
were before his eyes. 

Father Herreros had a big rough head, black heavy eye- 
brows, a short nose, an enormous mouth, yellow teeth, and grey 
hair. He wore a chocolate-coloured robe, open enough to 
show his whole neck down to his chest. The movement of the 
good monk’s lips was that of a man who wished to pass for 
keen and insinuating. His robe was dirty and he doubtless 
had the habit of leaving cigarette stubs on the table. 

The cell had one window, and in front of it a bookcase. 
Caesar made an effort to read the titles: They were almost all 
Latin books, the kind that nobody reads. 

Father Herreros began to ask Caesar questions. In his 
brain, he was doubtless wondering why Cardinal Fort’s 
nephew should come to him. 

After many useless words they got to the concrete point that 
Caesar wanted to take up, Father Herreros’s acquaintance in 
Spain, and the monk said that he knew a very rich widow 
who had property in Toledo. When Caesar went to Madrid, 
he would give him a letter of recommendation to her. 

“T cannot keep you any longer now, because a Mexican lady 
is waiting for me,” said Father Herreros. 

Caesar arose, and after shaking the monk’s fat hand, he left 
the convent. He returned to Rome on foot, crossing the river 
again, and looking at the Tiberine island; and arrived with- 
out hurrying at the hotel. He wrote to his friend Azugaray, 
requesting him to discover, by the indications he gave him, who 
the rich widow that had property in Toledo could be. 


THE LICENTIATE MIRO 


The next day Caesar decided to pursue his investigations, 
and went to see Father Miro. 
Father Mird lived in a college in the Via Monserrato. 


110 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


Caesar inspected the map of Rome, looking for that street, 
and found that it is located in the vicinity of the Campo de’ 
Fiori, and took his way thither. 

The spring day was magnificent; the sky was blue, without 
a cloud; the tiled roofs of some of the palaces were decorated 
with borders of plants and flowers; in the street, dry and 
flooded with sunshine, a water-carrier in a cart full of fat, 
green bottles, passed by, singing and cracking his whip. 

Caesar crossed the Campo de’ Fiori, a very lively, plebeian 
square, full of canvas awnings with open stalls of fruit under 
them. In the middle stood the statue of Giordano Bruno, with 
a crown of flowers around its neck. 

Then he took the Via de’ Cappellari, a narrow lane and dirty 
enough. From one side to the other clothes were hung out to 
dry. : 

He came to the college and entered the church contiguous 
to it. He asked for Father Miré; a sacristan with a long 
moustache and a worn blue overcoat, took him to another 
entrance, made him mount an old wooden staircase, and con- 
ducted him to the office of the man he was looking for. 

Father Miré was a tiny little man, dark and filthy, with a 
worn-out cassock, covered with dandruff, and a large dirty 
square cap with a big rosette. 

“ Will you tell me what you want?” said the little priest in 
a sullen tone. 

Caesar introduced himself, and explained in a few words 
who he was and what he proposed. 

Father Miréd, without asking him to sit down, answered 
rapidly, saying that he had no acquaintance with matters of 
finance or speculation. 

Caesar felt a shudder of anger at the rudeness with which 
he was treated by this draggled little priest, and felt a vehement 
desire to take him by the neck and twist it, like a chicken’s. 

Despite his anger, he did not change expression, and he 
asked the priest smilingly if he knew who could give him ad- 
vice about those questions. 

“You can see Father Ferrer at the Gregorian University, 


A SOUNDING-LINE 111 


or Father Mendia. He is an encyclopedist. It was he who 
wrote the theological portion of the encyclical Pascendi, the one 
about Modernism. He is a man of very great learning.” 

“He will do. Many thanks,” and Caesar turned toward the 
door. 

“ Excuse me for not having asked you to sit down, but. . .” 

“No matter,” Caesar replied, rapidly, and he went out to 
the stairs. 

In view of the poor result of his efforts, he decided to go to 
the Gregorian University. He was told it was in the Via del 
Seminario, and supposed it must be the large edifice with little 
windowed bridges over two streets. 

That edifice was the Collegio Romano; the Gregorian Uni- 
versity was in the same street, but further on, opposite the Post 
Office Department. Father Ferrer could not receive him, be- 
cause he was holding a class; and after they had gone up 
and come down and taken Caesar’s card for Father Mendia, 
they told him he was out. 

Caesar concluded that it was not so easy to find a crack 
through which one could get information of what was going 
on in the clerical world. 

“T see that the Church gives them all a defensive instinct 
which they make good use of. They are really only poor 
devils, but they have a great organization, and it cannot be 
easy to get one’s fingers through the meshes of their net.” 


XII 
A MEETING ON THE PINCIO 


A WALK IN THE VILLA BORGHESE 


T the beginning of Holy Week Laura returned to the 
hotel, at lunch-time. 
“And your husband?” Caesar asked her. 

“He didn’t want to come. Rome bores him. He is giving 
all his attention to taking care of the heart-disease he says he 
has.” 

“Ts it serious? ” 

“JT think not. Every time I see him I find him with a new 
disease and a new diet; one time it is vegetarian, another noth- 
ing but meat, another time he says one should eat only grapes, 
or nothing but bread.” 

“Then I see that he belongs to the illustrious brotherhood of 
the insane.” 

“You are not far from joining that brotherhood yourself.” 

“‘ Dear sister, I am one of the few sane men that go stumbling . 
around this insane asylum let loose we call the earth.” 

“What you say about men is the truth, even though you are 
not an exception. Really, the more I have to do with men, 
the more convinced I am that any one of them who is not crazy, 
is stupid or vain or proud. . . . How much more intelligent, 
discreet, logical we women are! ” 

“Don’t tell me. You are marvels; modest, kindly toward 
your rivals, so little given to humiliating your neighbours, male 
or female. . . .” 

“ Yes, yes; but we are not so conceited or such play-actors as 
you are. A woman may think herself pretty and amiable and 
sweet, and not be so. That is true; but on the other hand, 


every man thinks himself braver than the Cid, even if he is 
112 


A MEETING ON THE PINCIO 113 


afraid of a fly, and more talented than Seneca, even if he is a 
dolt.” 

“To sum up, men are a calamity.” 

“ Just so.” 

“And women spend their lives fishing for these calami- 
ties.” 

They need them; there are inferior things which still are 
necessary.” 

“ And there are hipesioe things which are good for noth- 
ing.” 

“Will you come and take a drive with me, philosopher 
brother? ” 

“* Where? ” 

“Let’s go to the Villa Borghese. The carriage will be here 
in a moment.” 

“All right. Let us go there.” 

A two-horse victoria with rubber tires was waiting at the 
door, and Laura and Caesar got in. The carriage went past 
the Treasury, and out the Porta Salaria, and entered the 
gardens of the Villa Borghese. 

The morning had been rainy; the ground was damp; the 
wind waved the tree-tops gently and caused a murmur like the 
tide. The carriage rolled slowly along the avenues. Laura 
was very gay and chatty. Caesar listened to her as one 
listens to a bird warbling. 

Many times while listening he thought: ‘“ What is there in- 
side this head? What is the master idea of her life? Has she 
really any idea about life, or has she none? ” 

After several rounds they crossed the viaduct that unites the 
Villa Borghese with the Pincio gardens. 


FROM THE PINCIO TERRACE 


They approached the great terrace of the gardens by an avenue 
that has busts of celebrated men along both sides. 

“ Poor great men! ” exclaimed Caesar. ‘“‘ Their statues serve - 
only to decorate a public garden.” 


114 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“ They had their lives,” replied Laura, gaily; “ now we have 
ours.” 

Laura ordered the coachman to stop a moment. The air 
was still murmuring in the foliage, the birds singing, and the 
clouds flying slowly across the sky. | 

A man with a black box approached the carriage to offer 
them postcards. 

“ Buy two or three,” said Laura. 

Caesar bought a few and put them into his pocket. The 
vendor withdrew and Laura continued to look at Rome with 
enthusiasm. 

“Oh, how beautiful, how lovely it is! I never get tired of 
looking at it. It is my favourite city. ‘O fior d’ogni cittd, 
donna del mondo.’” 

“She is no longer mistress of the world, little sister.” 

“For me she is. Look at St. Peter’s. It looks like a 
shred of cloud.” 

“Yes, that’s so. It’s of a blue shade that seems trans- 
parent.” 

Bells were ringing and great majestic white clouds kept 
moving along the horizon; on the Janiculum the statue of Gari- 
baldi rose up gallantly into the air, like a bird ready to take 
wing. 

“ When I look at Rome this way,” murmured Laura, “I feel 
@ pang, a pang of grief.” 

“ Why? ”? 

“Because I remember that I must die, and then I shall not 
come back to see Rome. She will be here still, century after 
century, full of sunlight, and I shall be dead. . . . It is hor- 
rible, horrible! ” 

“And your religion? ” 

“Yes, I know. I believe I shall see other things; but not 
these things that are so beautiful.” 

“You are an Epicurean.” 

“Tt is so beautiful to be alive! ” 

They stayed there looking at the panorama. Below, in the 


A MEETING ON THE PINCIO 115 


Piazza del Popolo, they saw a red tram slipping along, which 
looked, at that distance, like a toy. 

A tilbury, driven by a woman, stopped near their carriage. 
The woman was blond with green eyes, prominent cheek-bones, 
and a little fur cap. At her feet lay an enormous dog with 
long flame-coloured hair. 

** She must be a Russian,” said Caesar. 

“Yes. Do you like that type? ” 

“She has a lot of character. She looks like one of the 
women that would order servants to be whipped.” 

The Russian was smiling vaguely. Laura told the coach- 
man to drive on. They made a few rounds in the avenues of 
the Pincio. The music was beginning; a few carriages, and 
groups of soldiers and seminarians, crowded around the band- 
stand; Laura didn’t care for brass bands, they were too noisy 
for her, and she gave the coachman orders to drive to the Corso. 


MEETING MARCHMONT 


They passed in front of the Villa Medici, and when they 
got near the Piazza della Trinita de’ Monti they met a man 
on horseback, who, on seeing them, immediately approached the 
carriage. It was Archibald Marchmont, who had just arrived 
in Rome. 

“T thought you had forgotten us,” said Laura. 

“IT forget you, Marchesa! Never.” 

“You say you came to Rome... .” 

“From Nice I had to return to London, because my father 
was seriously ill with an attack of gout.” 

“He is well again? ” 

“Yes, thank you. You are coming back from a drive? ” 

“ Yes. ”? f ‘ 

“Don’t you want to come and have tea with my wife and 
me?” 

“Where?” - ‘ 

“ At the Hotel Excelsior. We are staying there. Will you 
come? ” 


116 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“ All right.” 

Laura accepted, and they went to the Via Veneto with the 
Englishman riding beside them. 

They went into the hotel and passed through to the “ hall” 
full of people. Marchmont sent word to his wife by a servant, 
to come down. Laura and Caesar seated themselves with the 
Englishman. 

“This hotel is unbearable,” exclaimed Marchmont; “ there 
is nothing here but Americans.” 

“ Your wife, however, must Jike that,’ said Caesar. 

“No. Susanna is more European every day, and she doesn’t 
care for the shrieking elegance of her compatriots. Besides, 
her father is here, and that makes her feel less American.” 

“Tt is an odd form of filial enthusiasm,” remarked Caesar. 

“Tt doesn’t shock me. I almost think it’s the rule,” replied 
Marchmont; “ at home I could see that my brothers and sisters 
hated one another cordially, and that every member of the 
family wanted to get away from the others. You two who are 
so fond of each other are a very rare instance. Is it frequent 
in Spain that brothers and sisters like one another? ” 

“ Yes, there are instances of it,” answered Caesar, laughing. 

Mrs. Marchmont arrived, accompanied by an old man who 
evidently was her father, and two other men. Susanna was 
most smart; she greeted Laura and Caesar very affably, and 
presented her father, Mr. Russell; then she presented an 
English author, tall, skinny, with blue eyes, a white beard, 
and hair like a halo; and then a young Englishman from the 
Embassy, a very distinguished person named Kennedy, who 
was a Catholic. 


TEA 


After the introductions they passed into the dining-room, 
which was most impressive. It was an exhibition of very smart 
women, some of them ideally beautiful, and idle men. All 
about them resounded a nasal English of the American sort. 

Susanna Marchmont served the tea and did the honours to 
her guests. They all talked French, excepting Mr. Russell, 


A MEETING ON THE PINCIO 119 


who once in a long while uttered some categorical monosyllable 
in his own language. 

Mr. Russell was not of the classic Yankee type; he looked 
like a vulgar Englishman. He was a serious man, with a short 
moustache, grey-headed, with three or four gold teeth. 

What to Caesar seemed wonderful in this gentleman was 
his economy of words. There was not one useless expression 
in his vocabulary, and not the slightest redundancy; whatever 
partook of merit, prestige, or nobility was condensed, for him, 
to the idea of value; whatever partook of arrangement, cleanli- 
ness, order, was condensed to the word “ comfort”; so that Mr. 
Russell, with a very few words, had everything specified. 

To Susanna, imbued with her preoccupation in supreme chic, 
her father no doubt did not seem a completely decorative father; 
but he gave Caesar the impression of a forceful man. 

Near them, at a table close by, was a little blond man, 
with a hooked nose and a scanty imperial, in company with 
a fat lady. They bowed to Marchmont and his wife. 

“ That gentleman looks like a Jew,” said Caesar. 

“ He is,” replied Marchmont, “ that is Sefior Pereyra, a rich 
Jew; of Portuguese origin, I think.” 

“ How quickly you saw it! ” exclaimed Susanna. 

“He has that air of a sick goat, so frequent in Jews.” 

“ His wife has nothing sickly about her, or thin either,” re- 
marked Laura. 

“No,” said Caesar; “his wife represents another Biblical 
type; one of the fat kine of somebody’s dream, which fore- 
told abundance and a good harvest.” 

The Englishman, Kennedy, had also little liking for Jews. 

“T do not hate a Jew as anti-Christian,” said Caesar; “ but 
as super-Christian. Nor do I hate the race, but the tendency 
they have never to be producers, but always middlemen, and 
because they incarnate so well for our era the love of money, 
and of joy and pleasure.” 

The English author was a great partisan of Jews, and he as- 
serted that they were more distinguished in science and the arts 
than any other race. 


118 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


The Jewish question was dropped in an instant, when they 
saw a smart lady come in accompanied by a pale man with a 
black shock of hair and an uneasy eye. 

“That is the Hungarian violinist Kolozsvar,” said Susaund. 

“ Kolozsvar, Kolozsvar! ” they heard everybody saying. 

“Is he a great virtuoso? ” Caesar asked Kennedy. 

“No, I think not,” answered Kennedy. ‘“ It seems that this 
Hungarian’s speciality is playing the waltzes and folk-songs 
of his own country, which is certainly not anything great; but 
his successes are not obtained with the violin, but among the 
women. The ladies in London fight for him. His game is 
to pass himself off as a fallen man, depraved, worn-out. 
There you have his phraseology. . . . They see a man to save, 
to raise up, and convert into a great artist, and almost all of 
them yield to this temptation.” 

“That is comical,” said Caesar, looking curiously at the 
fiddler and his lady. 

“ To a Spaniard,” replied Kennedy, “ it is comical; and prob- 
ably it would be to an Italian too; but in England there are 
many women that have a purely imaginative idealism, a ro- 
manticism fed on ridiculous novels, and they fall into traps 
like these, which seem clumsy and grotesque to you here in the 
South, where people are more clear-sighted and realistic.” 

Caesar watched the brave fiddler, who played the role of a 
man used up, to great perfection. 

After tea, Susanna invited them to go up to her rooms, and 
Laura and her brother and Kennedy and Mr. Russell went. 

The English author had met a colleague, with whom he 
stayed behind talking, and Marchmont remained in the “ hall,” 
as if it did not seem to him proper for him to go to his wife’s 
rooms. 

Susanna’s rooms were very high, had balconies on the Via 
Veneto, and were almost opposite Queen Margherita’s palace. 
One overlooked the garden and could see the Queen Mother 
taking her walks, which is not without its importance for per- 
sons who live in a republic. 

Susanna was most amiable to Laura; repeated to all of them 


A MEETING ON THE PINCIO 119 


her invitation to come and see her again; and after they had 
all promised to see one another frequently, Caesar and Laura 
went down to their carriage, and took a turn on the Corso by 
twilight. 


XIII 
ESTHETICS AND DEMAGOGY 


SUSANNA AND THE YOUNGSTERS 


ROM this meeting on, Caesar noticed that Marchmont 
paid court to Laura with much persistence. A light- 
hearted, coquettish woman, it pleased Laura to be 

pursued by a person like this Englishman, young, distinguished, 
and rich; but she was not prepared to yield. Her bringing- 
up, her class-feelings impelled her to consider adultery a 
heinous thing. Nor was divorce a solution for her, since ac- 
cepting it would oblige her to cease being a Catholic and to 
quarrel irrevocably with the Cardinal. Marchmont showed no 
discretion in the way he paid court to Laura; he cared nothing 
about his wife, and talked of her with profound contempt. .. . 

Laura found herself besieged by the Englishman; she 
couldn’t decide to discourage him entirely, and at critical 
moments she would take the train, go off to Naples, and come 
back two or three days later, doubtless with more strength for 
withstanding the siege. 

“As a matter of reciprocal justice, since he makes love to 
my sister, I ought to make love to his wife,” thought Caesar, 
and he went several times to the Hotel Excelsior to call on 
Susanna. 

The Yankee wife was full of complaints against her hus- 
band. Her father had advised her simply to get a divorce, 
but she didn’t want to. She found such a solution lacking 
in distinction, and no doubt she considered the advice of an 
author in her own country very true, who had given this triple 
injunction to the students of a woman’s college: ‘Do not 


drink, that is, do not drink too much; do not smoke, that is, 
120 


ESTHETICS AND DEMAGOGY 121 


do not smoke too much; and do not get married, that is, do not 
get married too much.” . 

It did not seem quite right to Susanna to get married too 
much. Besides she had a desire to become a Catholic. One 
day she questioned Caesar about it: 

“You want to change your religion! ” exclaimed Caesar, 
“What for? I don’t believe you are going to find your lost 
faith by becoming a Catholic.” 

“And what do you think about it, Kennedy?” Susanna 
asked the young Englishman, who was there too. 

“To me a Catholic woman seems doubly enchanting.” 

“You would not marry a woman who wasn’t a Catholic? ” 

“No, indeed,” the Englishman proclaimed. 

Caesar and Kennedy disagreed about everything. 

Susanna discussed her plans, and constantly referred to Paul 
Bourget’s novel Cosmopolis, which had obviously influenced 
her in her inclination for Catholicism. 

“ Are there many Jewish ladies who aspire to be baptized and 
become Catholics, as Bourget says? ” asked Susanna. 

“ Bah! ” exclaimed Caesar. 

“You do not believe that either? ” 

“No, it strikes me as a piece of naivety in this good soul 
of a novelist. To become a Catholic, I don’t believe requires 
more than. some few pesetas.” 

“You are detestable, as a Cardinal’s nephew.” 

“I mean that I don’t perceive that there are any obstacles 
to prevent anybody from becoming a Catholic, as there are to 
prevent his becoming rich. What a high ambition, to aspire 
to be a Catholic! While nobody anywhere does anything but 
laugh at Catholics; and it has become an axiom: ‘A Catholic 
country is a country bound for certain ruin.’ ” 

Kennedy burst out laughing. 

Susanna said that she had no real faith, but that she did 
have a great enthusiasm for churches and for choirs, for the 
smell of incense and religious music. 

“Spain is the place for all that,” said Kennedy. ‘“ Here in 
Italy the Church ceremonies are too gay. Not so in Spain; 


122 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


at Toledo, at Burgos, there is an austerity in the cathedrals, 
an unworldliness. . . .” 

“ Yes,” said Caesar; “ unhappily we have nothing left there 
but ceremonies. At the same time, the people are dying of 
hunger.” ‘ 

They discussed whether it is better to live in a decorative, 
esthetic sphere, or in a more humble and practical one; and 
Susanna and Kennedy stood up for the superiority of an 
esthetic life. 

As they left the hotel Caesar said to Kennedy: 

“ Allow me a question. Have you any intentions concerning 
Mrs. Marchmont? ” 

“ Why do you ask? ” 

“Simply because I shouldn’t go to see her often, so as 
not to be in the way.” 

“Thank you ever so much. But I have no intentions in re- 
lation to her. She is too beautiful and too rich a woman for 
a modest employee like me to fix his eyes on.” 

“Bah! A modest diplomat! That is absurd. It is merely 
that you don’t take to her.” 

“No. It’s because she is a queen. There ought to be some 
defect in her face to make her human.” 

“ Yes; that’s true. She is too much of a prize beauty.” 

“That is the defect in the Yankee women; they have no 
character. The weight of tradition might be fatal to industry 
and modern life, but it is the one thing that creates the 
spirituality of the old countries. Beyond contradiction Ameri- 
can women have intelligence, beauty, energy, attractive flashes, 
but they lack that particular thing created by centuries: 
character. At times they have very charming impulses. Have 
you heard the story about Prince Torlonia’s wife? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Well, Torlonia’s present wife was an American girl worth 
millions, who came with letters to the prince. He took her 
about Rome, and at the end of some days he said to her, sup- 
posing that the beautiful American had the intention of marry- 
ing: ‘I will introduce some young noblemen to you’; and she 


ESTHETICS AND DEMAGOGY 123 


answered: ‘Don’t introduce anybody to me; because you 
please me more than anybody’; and she married him.” 

“Tt was a pretty impulse.” 
_ “Yes, Americans do things like that on the spur of the 
moment. But if you saw a Spanish woman behave that way, 
it would seem wrong to you.” 

Chattering amicably they came to the Piazza Esedra. 

“Would you care to have lunch with me?” said Kennedy. 

“ Just what I was going to propose to you.” 

“T eat alone.” 

“T do not. I eat with my sister.” 

“ The Marchesa di Vaccarone? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“Then you must pardon me if I accept your invitation, for 
I am very anxious to meet her.” 

“Then come along.” 


RUSKIN AND THE PHILISTINES 


They reached the hotel and Caesar introduced his friend to 
Laura. 
_ “He is an admirer of yours.” 


“A respectful admirer ... from a distance,” explained 
Kennedy. 

“ But are there admirers of that sort?” asked Laura, laugh- 
ing. 

“Here you have one,” said the Englishman. “I have 


known you by sight ever since I came to Rome, and have never 
had the pleasure of speaking to you until today.” 

“And have you been here a long time? ” 

“ Nearly two years.” 

“And do you like Rome; eh?” 

“T should say so! At first, I didn’t, I must admit. It was 
a disappointment to me. I had dreamed so much about 
Rome!” and Kennedy talked of the books and guides he had 
read about the Eternal City. 

“IT must admit that I had never dreamed about Rome,” said 
Caesar. 


124 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“And you boast of that? ” asked Laura. 

“No, I don’t boast of it, I merely state it. I understand 
how agreeable it is to know things. Caesar died here! Cicero 
made speeches here! Saint Peter stumbled over this stone! It 
is fine! But not knowing things is also very comfortable. I 
am rather like a barbarian walking indifferently among monu- 
ments he knows nothing about.” 

“ Doesn’t such an idea make you ashamed?” 

“No, why? It would be a bother to me to know a lot of 
things offhand. To pass by a mountain and know how it was 
thrown up, what it is composed of, what its flora and fauna 
are; to get to a town and know its history in detail... . 
What things to be interested in! It’s tiresome! I hate history 
too much. I far prefer to be ignorant of everything, and 
especially the past, and from time to time to offer myself a 
capricious, arbitrary explanation.” 

“ But I think that knowing things not only is not tiresome,” 
said Kennedy, “but is a great satisfaction.” 

“You think even learning things is a satisfaction? ” 

“Thousands of years ago one could know things almost with- 
‘out learning them; nowadays in order to know, one has to learn. 
That is natural and logical.” 

“Yes, certainly. And the effort to learn about useful things 
seems natural and logical to me too, but not to learn about 
merely agreeable things. To learn medicine and mechanics is 
logical; but to learn to look at a picture or to hear a symphony 
is an absurdity.” 

“ Why? ” 

“At any rate the neophytes that go to see a Rafael picture 
or to hear a Bach sonata and have an exclamation all ready, 
give me the sad impression of a flock of lambs. As for your 
sublime pedagogues of the Ruskin type, they seem to me to be 
the fine flower of priggishness, of pedantry, of the most objec- 
tionable bourgeoisie.” 

“What things your brother is saying! ” exclaimed Kennedy. 

“You shouldn’t notice him,” said Laura. 

“Those artistic pedagogues enrage me; they remind me of 


ESTHETICS AND DEMAGOGY 125 


Protestant pastors and of the friars that go around dressed like 
peasants, and who I think are called Brothers of the Christian 
Doctrine. The pedagogues are Brothers of the Esthetic 
Doctrine, one of the stupidest inventions that ever occurred to 
the English. I don’t know which I find more ridiculous, the 
Salvation Army or Ruskin’s books.” 

“Why have you this hatred for Ruskin? ” 

“T find him an idiot. I only skimmed through a book of 
his called The Seven Lamps of Architecture, and the first thing 
I read was a paragraph in which he said that to use an imita- 
tion diamond or any other imitation stone was a lie, an im- 
position, and a sin. I immediately said: ‘This man who 
thinks a diamond is the truth and paste a lie, is a stupid fool 
who doesn’t deserve to be read.’ ” 

“Yes, all right: you take one point of view and he takes 
another. I understand why Ruskin wouldn’t please you. 
What I do not understand is why you find it absurd that if a 
person has a desire to penetrate into the beauties of a 
symphony or a picture, he should do so. What is there strange 
in that?” 

“You are right,” said Caesar; ‘“ whoever wants to learn, 
should. I have done so about financial questions.” 

“Ts it true that your brother knows all about questions of 
money?” Kennedy asked Laura. 

“He says so.” 

“‘T haven’t much belief in his financial knowledge.” 

“ No? ”? 

“No, I have not. You are a sort of dilettante, half nihilist, 
half financier. You would like to pass for a tranquil, well- 
balanced man, for what is called a philistine, but you cannot 
compass it.” ‘ 

“I will compass it. It is true that I want to be a philistine, 
but a philistine out in the real world. All those great artists 
you people admire, Goethe, Ruskin, were really philistines, who 
were in the business of being interested in poetry and statues 
and pictures.” 

“Moncada, you are a sophist,”’ said Kennedy. 


126 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“ Possibly I am wrong in this discussion,” retorted Caesar, 
“ but the feeling I have is right. Artists irritate me; they seem 
to me like old ladies with a flatulency that prevents their breath- 
ing freely.” 

Kennedy laughed at the definition. 


CHIC AND THE REVOLUTION 


“ T understand hating bad kings and conquerors; but artists! 
What harm do they do? ” said Laura. 

“ Artists are always doing harm to the whole of humanity. 
They have invented an esthetic system for the use of the rich, 
and they have killed the Revolution. The chic put an end to 
the Revolution. And now everything is coming back; en- 
thusiasm for the aristocracy, for the Church; the cult of kings. 
People look backward and the Revolutionary movement is 
paralysed. The people that irritate me most are those 
esthetes of the Ruskin school, for whom everything is religious: 
having money, buying jewels, blowing one’s nose . . . every- 
thing is religious. Vulgar creatures, lackeys that they are! ” 

“My brother is a demagogue,” said Laura ironically. 

“ Yes,” added Kennedy; “ he doesn’t like categories.” 

“But each thing has its value whether he likes it or 
not.” 

“T do not deny different values, or even categories. There 
are things of great value in life; some natural, like youth, 
beauty, strength; others more artificial, like money, social posi- 
tion; but this idea of distinction, of aristocratic fineness, is a 
farce. It is a literary legend in the same style as the one cur- 
rent in novels, which tells us that the aristocrats of old families 
close their doors to rich Americans, or like that other story 
Mrs. Marchmont was talking to us of, about the Jewish ladies 
who were crazy to become Catholics.” 

“T don’t see what you are trying to prove by all this,” said 
Laura. 

“T am trying to prove that all there is underneath dis- 
tinguished society is money, for which reason it doesn’t matter 


ESTHETICS AND DEMAGOGY 127 


if it is destroyed. The cleverest and finest man, if he has no 
money, will die of hunger in a corner. Smart society, which 
thinks itself superior, will never receive him, because being 
really superior and intelligent is of no value on the market. 
On the other hand, when it is a question of some very rich 
brute, he will succeed in being accepted and féted by the aristo- 
crats, because money has a real value, a quotable value, or I’d 
better say, it is the only thing that has a quotable value.” 

“‘ What you are saying isn’t true. A man doesn’t go with the 
best people merely because he is rich.” 

“No, certainly; not immediately. There is a preparatory 
process. He begins by robbing people in some miserable little 
shop, and feels himself democratic. Then he robs in a bank, 
and at that period he feels that he is a Liberal and begins to 
experience vaguely aristocratic ideas. If business goes splen- 
didly, the aristocratic ideas get crystallized. Then he can come 
to Rome and go into ecstasies over all the humbugs of Catholi- 
cism; and after that, one is authorized to acknowledge that the 
religion of our fathers is a beautiful religion, and one finishes 
by giving a tip to the Pope, and another to Cardinal Verry, 
so that they will make him Prince of the Ecumenical Council 
or Marquis of the Holy Crusade.” 

“What very stupid and false ideas,” exclaimed Laura. 
“ Really I appreciate having a brother who talks in such a 
vulgar way.” 

“You are an aristocrat and the truth doesn’t please you. 
But such are the facts. I can see the chief of the bureau of 
Papal titles. What fun he must have thinking up the most ap- 
propriate title for a magnate of Yankee tinned beef or for an 
illustrious Andean general! How magnificent it would be to 
gather all the Bishops in partibus infidelium and all the 
people with Papal titles in one drawing-room! The Bishop 
of Nicaea discussing with the Marquis of the Holy Roman Em- 
pire; the Marchioness of Easter Sunday flirting with the Bishop 
of Sion, while the Patriarchs of Thebes, Damascus, and 
Trebizond played bridge with the sausage manufacturer, Mr. 
Smiles, the pork king, or with the illustrious General Pérez, the 


128 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


hero of Guachinanguito. What a moving spectacle it would 
be! ” 

“You are a clown! ” said Laura. 

“He is a finished satirist,” added Kennedy. 


CAESAR’S PLAN 


After lunch, Laura, Kennedy, and Caesar went into the 
salon, and Laura introduced the Englishman to the San 
Martino girls and the Countess Brenda. They stayed there 
chatting until four o’clock, at which time the San Martinos got 
ready to go out in a motor car, and Laura, with the Countess 
and her daughter, in a carriage. 

Caesar and Kennedy went into the street together. 

“You are awfully well fixed here,” said Kennedy, “ with 
no Americans, no Germans, or any other barbarians.” 

“Yes, this hotel is a hive of petty aristocrats.” 

“Your sister was telling me that you might pick out a very 
rich wife here, among the girls.” 

“Yes, my sister would like me to live here, in a foreign 
country, in cowlike tranquillity, looking at pictures and statues, 
and travelling pointlessly. That wouldn’t be living for me; 
I am not a society man. I require excitement, danger... . 
Though I warn you that I am not in the least courageous.” 

““'You’re not?” 

“Not at all. Not now. At moments I believe I could con- 
trol myself and take a trench without wavering.” 

“But you have some fixed plan, haven’t you?” 

“ Yes, I expect to go back to Spain, and work there.” 

“ At what? ” 

“ In politics.” 

“ Are you patriotic? ” 

“Yes, up to a certain point. I have no transcendental idea 
of patriotism at all. Patriotism, as I interpret it, is a matter 
of curiosity. 1 believe that there is strength in Spain. If this 
strength coulc be led in a given direction, where would it get 


ESTHETICS AND DEMAGOGY 129 


to? That is my form of patriotism; as I say, it is an experi- 
mental form.” 

Kennedy looked at Caesar with curiosity. 

“ And how can it help you with your plans to stay here in 
Rome? ” he asked. 

“Tt can help me. In Spain nobody knows me. This is the 
only place where I have a certain position, through being the 
nephew of a Cardinal. I am trying to build on that. How 
am I going to arrange it? I don’t know. I am feeling out 
my future course, taking soundings.” 

“ But the support you could find here would be all of a 
clerical nature,” said Kennedy. 

“ Of course.” 

“ But you are not Clerical! ” 

“No; but it is necessary for me to climb. Afterwards there 
will be time to change.” 

“You are not taking it into account, my dear Caesar, that 
the Church is still powerful and that it doesn’t pardon people 
who impose upon it.” 

“Bah! I am not afraid of it.” 

“And you were just saying you are not courageous! You 
are courageous, my dear man. . . . After this, I don’t doubt 
of your success.” 

“T need data.” 

“Tf I can furnish you with any... .” 

“Wouldn’t it be disagreeable for you to help a man who 
is your enemy, so far as ideas go?” 

“No; because I am beginning to have some curiosity too, 
as to whether you will succeed in doing something. If I can 
be of any use, let me know.” 

“T will let you know.” 

Caesar and Kennedy took a walk about the streets, and at 
twilight they took leave of each other affectionately. 


XIV 
NEW ATTEMPTS, NEW RAMBLES 


CARDINAL SPADA 


66 HAVE arranged two interesting conferences for you,” 
said Kennedy, a few days later. 
“My dear man!” 

“Yes; one with Cardinal Spada, the other with the Abbé 
Tardieu. I have spoken to them both about you.” 

“Splendid! What kind of people are they? ” 

“ Cardinal Spada is a very intelligent man and a very amiable 
one. At heart he is a Liberal and fond of the French. As to 
the Abbé Tardieu, he is a very influential priest at the church 
of San Luigi.” 

After lunch they went direct to a solitary street in the old 
part of Rome. At the door of the big, sad palace where 
Cardinal Spada lived, a porter with a cocked hat, a grey great- 
coat, and a staff with a silver knob, was watching the few 
passers-by. 

They went in by the broad entry-way, as far as a dark 
colonnaded court, paved with big flags which had grass between 
them. 

In the middle of the court a fountain shot up a little way 
and fell into a stone basin covered with moss. 

Kennedy and Caesar mounted the wide monumental stair- 
way; on the first floor a handsome glassed-in gallery ran 
around the court. The whole house had an air of solemnity 
and sadness. They entered the Cardinal’s office, which was a 
large, sad, severe room. 

Monsignor Spada was a vigorous man, despite his age. He 
looked frank and intelligent, but one guessed that there was a 

130 


NEW ATTEMPTS, NEW RAMBLES 131 


hidden bitterness and desolation in him. He wore a black 
cassock with red edges and buttons. 

Kennedy went close and was about to kneel to the Cardinal, 
but he prevented him. 

Caesar explained his ideas to the Cardinal with modesty. 
He felt that this man was worthy of all his respect. 

Monsignor Spada listened attentively, and then said that he 
understood nothing about financial matters, but that on prin- 
ciple he was in favour of having the administration of all the 
Church’s property kept entirely at home, as in the time of 
Pius IX. Leo XIII had preferred to replace this paternal 
method by a trained bureaucracy, but the Church had not 
gained anything by it, and they had lost credit through un- 
fortunate negotiations, buying land and taking mortgages. 

Caesar realized that it was useless to attempt to convince 
a man of the intelligence and austerity of the Cardinal, and he 
listened to him respectfully. 

Monsignor Spada conversed amiably, he escorted them as far 
as the door, and shook hands when they said good-bye. 


THE ABBE TARDIEU 


Then they went to see the Abbé Tardieu. The abbé lived 
in the Piazza Navona. His office, furnished in modern style, 
produced the effect of a violent contrast with Cardinal Spada’s 
sumptuous study, and yet brought it to mind. The Abbé Tar- 
dieu’s work-room was small, worldly, full of books and photo- 
_ graphs. 

The abbé, a tall young man, thin, with a rosy face, a long 
nose, and a mouth almost from ear to ear, had the air of an 
astute but jolly person, and laughed at everything said to 
him. He was liveliness personified. When they entered his 
office he was writing and smoking. 

Caesar explained about his financial knowledge, and how 
he had gone on acquiring it, until he got to the point where 
he could discern a law, a system, in things where others saw 
nothing more than chance. 


132 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


The Abbé Tardieu promised that if he knew a way to 
utilize Caesar’s knowledge, he would send him word. In re- 
spect to giving him letters of introduction to influential per- 
sons in Spain, he had no objection. 

They took leave of the abbé. 

“ All this has to go slowly,” said Kennedy. 

“Of course. One cannot insist that it should happen all at 
once.” 


BERNINI 


“Tf you have nothing to do, let’s take a walk,” said the 
Englishman. 

“Tf you like.” 

“ Have you noticed the fountains in this square? ” 

“ No.” 

“They are worth looking at.” 

Caesar contemplated the central obelisk. It is set on top of 
a rock hollowed out like a cavern, in the mouth of which a 
lion is seen. Afterwards they looked at the fountains at the 
ends of the square. 

“The sculptures are by Bernini,” explained Kennedy. 
“ Bernini belonged to an epoch that has been very much abused 
by the critics, but nowadays he is much praised. He enchants 
me.” 

“Tt is rather a mixed style, don’t you think? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“The artist is not living? ” 

“For heaven’s sake, man! No.” 

“Well, if he were alive today they would employ him to 
make those gewgaws some people preseut to leading ladies 
and to the deputies of their district. He would be the king 
of the manufacturers of ornate barometers.” 

“Tt is undeniable that Bernini had a baroque taste.” 

“ He gives the impression of a rather pretentious and affected 
person.” 

“ Yes, he does. He was an exuberant, luxuriant Neapolitan; 


NEW ATTEMPTS, NEW RAMBLES 133 


but when he chose he could produce marvels. Haven’t you seen 
his Saint Teresa? ” 

“ No.”’ 

“Then you must see it. Let’s take a carriage.” 

They drove to the Piazza San Bernardo, a little square con- 
taining three churches and a fountain, and went into Santa 
Maria della Vittoria. ; 

Kennedy went straight toward the high altar, and stopped 
to the left of it. 

In an altar of the transept is to be seen a group carved 
in marble, representing the ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Caesar 
gazed at it absorbed. The saint is an attractive young girl, 
falling backward in a sensual spasm; her eyes are closed, her 
mouth open, and her jaw a bit dislocated. In front of the 
swooning saint is a little angel who smilingly threatens her with 
an arrow. 

“ Well, what do you think of it? ” said Kennedy. 

“It is wonderful,” exclaimed Caesar. ‘“‘ But it is a bedroom 
scene, only the lover has slipped away.” 

“Yes, that is true.” 

“Tt really is pretty; you seem to see the pallor of the 
saint’s face, the circles under her eyes, the relaxation of all 
her muscles. Then the angel is a little joker who stands there 
smiling at the ecstasy of the saint.” 

“Yes, that’s true,” said Kennedy; “it is all the more ad- 
mirable for the very reason that it is tender, sensual, and 
charming, all at once.” 

“ However, this sort of thing is not healthy,” murmured 
Caesar, “this kind of vision depletes your life-force. One 
wants to find the same things represented in works of art that 
one ought to look for in life, even if they are not to be found 
in life.” 

“Good! Here enters the moralist. You talk like an 
Englishman,” exclaimed Kennedy. “Let us go along.” 

“cc Where? ?? 

“T have to stop in at the French Embassy a moment; then 
we can go where you like.” 


134 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


CORNERS OF ROME 


They went back to the carriage, and having crossed through 
the centre of Rome, got out in front of the Farnese Palace. 

“T will be out inside of ten minutes,” said Kennedy. 

The Farnese Palace aroused great admiration in Caesar; he 
had never passed it before. By one of the fountains in the 
piazza, he stood gazing at the huge square edifice, which seemed 
to him like a die cut from an immense block of stone. 

“ This really gives me an impression of grandeur and force,” 
he said to himself. ‘What a splendid palace! It looks like 
an ancient knight in full armour, looking indifferently at every- 
thing, sure of his own worth.” 

Caesar walked from one end of the piazza to the other, ab- 
sorbed in the majestic pile of stone. 

Kennedy surprised him in his contemplation. 

“ Now will you say that you are a good philistine? ” 

“ Ah, well, this palace is magnificent. Here are grandeur, 
strength, overwhelming force.” 

“ Yes, it is magnificent; but very uncomfortable, my French 
colleagues tell me.” 

Kennedy related the history of the Farnese Palace to Caesar. 
They went through the Via del Mascherone and came out into 
the Via Giulia. 

“This Via Giulia is a street in a provincial capital,” said 
Kennedy; “ always sad and deserted; a Cardinal or two who 
like isolation are still living here.” 

At the entrance to the Via dei Farnesi, Caesar stopped to 
look at two marble tablets set into the wall at the two sides 
of a chapel door. 

Cut on the tablets were skeletons painted black; on one, the 
words: ‘“ Alms for the poor dead bodies found in the fields,” 
and on the other: “Alms for the perpetual lamp in the 
cemetery.” 

“What does this mean?” said Caesar. 

“That is the Church of the Orison of the Confraternity of 
Death. The tablets are modern.” 

They passed by the “ Mascherone”’ again, and went rambling 


NEW ATTEMPTS, NEW RAMBLES 135 . 


on until they reached the Synagogue and the Theatre of Mar- 
cellus. 

They went through narrow streets without sidewalks; they 
passed across tiny squares; and it seemed like a dead city, or 
like the outskirts of a village. In certain streets towered high 
dark palaces of blackish stone. These mysterious palaces 
looked uninhabited; the gratings were eaten with rust, all sorts 
of weeds grew on the roofs, and the balconies were covered 
with climbing plants. At corners, set into the wall, one saw 
niches with glass fronts. A painted madonna, black now, 
with silver jewels and a crown, could be guessed at inside, and 
in front a little lantern swung on a cord. 

Suddenly a cart would come down one of these narrow streets 
without sidewalks, driving very quickly and scattering the 
women and children seated by the gutter. 

In all these poor quarters there were lanes crossed by ropes 
loaded with torn washing; there were wretched black shops 
from which an odour of grease exhaled; there were narrow 
streets with mounds of garbage in the middle. In the very 
palaces, now shorn of their grandeur, appeared the same decora- 
tion of rags waving in the breeze. In the Theatre of Mar- 
cellus one’s gaze got lost in the depths of black caves, where 
smiths stood out against flames. 

This mixture of sumptuousness and squalor, of beauty and 
ugliness, was reflected in the people; young and most beautiful 
women were side by side with fat, filthy old ones covered with 
rags, their eyes gloomy, and of a type that recalled old African 
Jewesses. 


WHAT CAN BE READ ON WALLS 


Caesar and Kennedy went on toward the Temple of Vesta 
and followed the river bank until the Tiber Embankment 
ended. 

Here the banks were green and the river clearer and more 
poetic. To the left rose the Aventine with its villas; in the 
harbour two or three tugs were tied up; and here and there 
along the pier stood a crane. 


136 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


Evening was falling and the sky was filling with pink 
clouds. 

They sat down awhile on the side of the road, and Caesar 
entertained himself deciphering the inscriptions written in char- 
coal on a mud-wall. 

“Do you go in for modern epigraphy? ” asked Kennedy. 

“Yes. It is one of the things I take pleasure in reading, 
in the towns I go to; the advertisements in the newspapers and 
the writings on the wall.” 

“It’s a good kind of curiosity.” 

“Yes, I believe one learns more about the real life in a town 
from such inscriptions than from the guide- and text-books.” 

“That’s possible. And what conclusions have you drawn 
from your observations? ” 

“They are not of much value. I haven’t constructed a 
science of wall-inscriptions, as that fake Lambroso would have 
done.” 

“ But you will construct it surely, when you have lighted 
on the underlying system.” 

“You think my epigraphical science is on the same level as 
my financial science. What a mistake! ” 

“ All right. But tell me what you have discovered about 
different towns.” 

“London, for instance, I have found, is childish in its in- 
scriptions and somewhat clownish. When some sentimental 
foolishness doesn’t occur to a Londoner of the people, some 
brutality or rough joke occurs to him.” 

“You are very kind,” said Kennedy, laughing. 

“Paris has a vulgar, cruel taste; in the Frenchman of the 
people you find the tiger alternating with the monkey. There 
the dominant note on the walls is the patriotic note, insults to 
politicians, calling them assassins and thieves, and also senti- 
ments of revenge expressed by an ‘A mort Dupin!’ or ‘A mort 
Duval!’ Moreover, there is a great enthusiasm for the guil- 
lotine.” 

“ And Madrid? ” 

“‘ Madrid is at heart a rude, moral town with little imagina- 


NEW ATTEMPTS, NEW RAMBLES $137 


tion, and the epigraphs on the walls and benches are primitive.” 

“And in Rome what do you find? ” 

“ Here one finds a mixture of pornography, romanticism, and 
politics. A heart pierced by an arrow and poetic phrases, alter- 
nate with some enormous piece of filthiness and with hurrahs 
for Anarchy or for the ‘ Papa-re.’” 

“Well done!” said Kennedy; “I can see that the branch 
of epigraphy you practise amounts to something. It should 
be systematized and given a name.” 

“What do you think we should name it? Wallography? ” 

sc Very good.” 

“And one of these fine days we can systematize it. Now 
we might go and get dinner.” 

They took a tram which was coming back from St. Paul’s 
beyond the Walls, and returned to the heart of the city. 


THE MONK WITH THE RED NOSE 


The next day Caesar was finishing dressing when the servant 
told him that a gentleman was waiting for him. 

“Who is it?” asked Caesar. 

“Tt’s a monk.” 

Caesar went to the salon and there found a tall monk with 
an evil face, a red nose, and a worn habit. 

Caesar recalled having seen him, but didn’t know where. 

“ What can I do for you? ” asked Caesar. 

“I come from His Eminence, Cardinal Fort. I must speak 
with you.” 

“ Let’s go into the dining-room. We shall be alone there.” 

“It would be better to talk in your room.” 

“No, there is no one here. Besides, I have to eat break- 
fast. Will you join me? ” 

“No, thanks,” said the monk. 

Caesar remembered having seen that face in the Altemps 
palace. He was doubtless one of the domestic monks who had 
been with the Abbé Preciozi. 

The waiter came bringing Caesar’s breakfast. 


138 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“ Will you tell me what it is?” said Caesar to the ecclesiastic, 
while he filled his cup. 

The monk waited until the waiter was gone, and then said 
in a hard voice: 

“ His Eminence the Cardinal sent me to bid you not to 
present yourself anywhere again, giving his name.” 

“What? What does this mean? ” asked Caesar, calmly. 

“Tt means that His Eminence has found out about your 
intrigues and machinations.” 

“Intrigues? What intrigues were those? ” 

“ You know perfectly well. And His Eminence forbids you 
to continue in that direction.” 

“ His Eminence forbids me to pay calls? And for what rea- 
son?” 

“ Because you have used his name to introduce yourself into 
certain places.” 

“Tt is not true.” 

“You have told people you went to that you are Cardinal 
Fort’s nephew.” 

“ And I am not?” asked Caesar, after taking a swallow of 
coffee. 

“ You are trying to make use of the relationship, we don’t 
know with what end in view.” 

“T am trying to make use of my relationship to Cardinal 
Fort? Why shouldn’t I?” 

“You admit it?” 

“Yes, I admit it. People are such imbeciles that they think 
it is an honour to have a Cardinal in the family; I take ad- 
vantage of this stupid idea, although I do not share it, because 
for me a Cardinal is merely an object of curiosity, an object for 
an archeological museum. . . .” 

Caesar paused, because the monk’s countenance was growing 
dark. In the twilight of his pallid face, his nose looked like 
a comet portending some public calamity. 

“Poor wretch!” murmured the monk. “ You do not know 
what you are saying. You are blaspheming. You are offending 
God.” 


NEW ATTEMPTS, NEW RAMBLES 139 


“Do you really believe that God has any relation to my 
uncle? ” asked Caesar, paying more attention to his toast than 
to his visitor. 

And then he added: 

“ The truth is that it would be extravagant behaviour on the 
part of God.” 

The monk looked at Caesar with terrible eyes. Those grey 
eyes of his, under their long, black, thick brows, shot lightning. 

“Poor wretch!” repeated the monk. ‘‘ You ought to have 
more respect for things above you.” 

Caesar arose. 

“You are bothering me and preventing me from drinking 
my coffee,” he said, with exquisite politeness, and touched the 
bell. 

“ Be careful!’ exclaimed the monk, seizing Caesar’s arm 
with violence. . 

“Don’t you touch me again,” said Caesar, pulling away 
violently, his face pale and his eyes flashing. “If you do, I 
have a revolver here with five chambers, and I shall take 
pleasure in emptying them one by one, taking that lighthouse 
you carry about for a nose, as my target. - 

“ Fire it if you dare.” 

Fortunately the waiter had come in on hearing the bell. 

“Do you wish anything, sir? ” he asked. 

“Yes, please escort this clerical gentleman to the door, and 
tell him on the way not to come back here.” 

Days later Caesar found out that there had been a great 
disturbance at the Altemps palace in consequence of the calls 
he had made. Preciozi had been punished and sent away from 
Rome, and the various Spanish monasteries and colleges 
warned not to receive Caesar. 


XV 
GIOVANNI BATTISTA, PAGAN 


a dear Caesar,” said Kennedy, “I believe it will 
be very difficult for you to find what you want 
by looking for it. You ought to leave it a little 

to chance.” 

“ Abandon myself to events as they arrive? All right, it 
seems a good idea.” 

“Then if you find something practicable, utilize it.” 

Kennedy took his friend to a statue-shop where he used 
to pass some of his hours. The shop was in a lane near the 
Forum, and its stock was in antiques, majolicas, and plaster 
casts of pagan gods. 

The shop was dark and rather gloomy, with a small court 
at the back covered with vines. The proprietor was an old 
man, with a moustache, an imperial, and a shock of white 
hair. His name was Giovanni Battista Lanza. He professed 
revolutionary ideas and had great enthusiasm about Mazzini. 
He expressed himself in an ironical and malicious manner. 

Signora Vittoria, his wife, was a grumbling old woman, 
rather devoted to wine. She spoke like a Roman of the lowest 
class, was olive-coloured and wrinkled, and of her former 
beauty there remained only her very black eyes and hair that 
was still black. 

The daughter, Simonetta, a girl who resembled her father, 
blond, with the build of a goddess, was the one that waited on 
customers and kept the accounts. 

Simonetta, being the manager, divided up the profits; the 
elder son was head of the workshop and he made the most 
money; then came two workmen from outside; and then the 

140 


GIOVANNI BATTISTA, PAGAN 141 


father who still got his day’s wages, out of consideration for 
his age; and finally the younger son, twelve or fourteen years 
old, who was an apprentice. 

Simonetta gave her mother what was indispensable for 
household expenses and managed the rest herself. 

Kennedy retailed this information the first day they went 
to Giovanni Battista Lanza’s house. Caesar could see Simon- 
etta keeping the books, while the small brother, in a white 
blouse that came to his heels, was chasing a dog, holding a 
pipe in his hand by the thick part, as if it were a pistol, the 
dog barking and hanging on to the blouse, the small boy 
shrieking and laughing, when Signora Vittoria came bawling 
out. 

Kennedy presented Simonetta to his friend Caesar, and she 
smiled and gave her hand. 

“Ts Signore Giovanni Battista here?” Kennedy asked 
Signora Vittoria. 

“Yes, he is in the court.” she answered in her gloomy way. 

“Ts something wrong with your mamma?” said Kennedy 
to Simonetta. 

“ Nothing.” 

They went into the court and Giovanni Battista arose, very 
dignified, and bowed to Caesar. The elder son and the two 
workmen in white blouses and paper caps were busy with 
water and wires, cleaning a plaster mould they had just 
emptied. 

The mould was a big bas-relief of the Way of the Cross. 
Giovanni Battista permitted himself various jocose remarks 
about the Way of the Cross, which his son and the other 
two workmen heard with great indifference; but while he was 
still emptying his store of anti-Christian irony, the voice of 
Signora Vittoria was heard, crying domineeringly: 

“ Giovanni Battista! ” 

“ What is it?” 

“ That’s enough, that’s enough! I can hear you from here.” 

“That’s my wife,” said Giovanni Battista, “she doesn’t 
like me to be lacking in respect for plaster saints.” 


142 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“You are a pagan!” screamed the old woman. “ You 
shall see, you shall see what will happen to you.” 

“What do you expect to have happen to me, darling? ” 

“‘ Leave her alone,” exclaimed the elder son, ill at ease; “ you 
always have to be making mother fly into a rage.” 

“No, my boy, no; she is the one who makes me fly into a 
rage.” 

“Giovanni Battista is used to living among gods,” said 
Kennedy, “and he despises saints.” 

“No, no,” replied the cast-maker; “some saints are all 
right. If all the churches had figures by Donatello or Robbia, 
I would go to church oftener; but to go and look at those 
statues in the Jesuit churches, those figures with their arms 
spread and their eyes rolling. . . . Oh, no! I cannot look at 
such things.” 

Caesar could see that Giovanni Battista expressed himself 
very well; but that he was not precisely a star when it came 
to working. After the mould for the bas-relief was cleaned 
and fixed, the cast-maker invited Caesar and Kennedy to have 
a glass of wine in a wine-shop near by. 

‘“‘How’s this, are you leaving already, father? ” said Simon- 
etta, as he went through the shop to get to the street. 

“Tm coming back, I’m coming back right away.” 


SUPERSTITIONS 


The three of them went to a rather dirty tavern in the same 
lane, and settled themselves by the window. This post was 
a good point of observation for that narrow street, so crowded 
and so picturesque. 

Workmen went by, and itinerant vendors, women with ker- 
chiefs, half head-dress and half muffler, and with black eyes 
and expressive faces. Opposite was a booth of coloured 
candies, dried figs strung on a reed, and various kinds of 
sweets. 


A wine-cart passed, and Kennedy made Caesar observe how 


GIOVANNI BATTISTA, PAGAN 143 


decorative it was with its big arm-seat in the middle and its 
hood above, like a prompter’s box. 

Giovanni Battista ordered a flask of wine for the three of 
them. While he chatted and drank, friends of his came to 
greet them. They were men with beards, long hair, and soft 
hats, of the Garbaldi and Verdi type so abundant in Italy. 

Among them were two serious old men; one was a model, 
a native of Frascati, with the face of a venerable apostle; 
the other, for contrast, looked like a buffoon and was the 
possessor of a grotesque nose, long, thin at the end and adorned 
with a red wart. 

“My wife has a deadly hatred for all of them,” said Gio- 
vanni Battista, laughing. 

“ And why so?” asked Caesar. 

“ Because we talk politics and sometimes they ask me for a 
few pennies. .. .” 

“Your wife must have a lively temper, . . .” said Caesar. 

“Yes, an unhappy disposition; good, awfully good; but 
very superstitious. Christianity has produced nothing but 
superstitions.” 

“ Giovanni Battista is a pagan, as his wife well says,” as- 
serted Kennedy. 

“What superstitions has your wife?” asked Caesar. 

“ All of them. Romans are very superstitious and my wife 
is a Roman. If you see a hunchback, it is good luck; if you 
see three, then your luck is magnificent and you have to 
swallow your saliva three times; on the other hand, if you see 
a humpbacked woman it is a bad omen and you must spit on 
the ground to keep away the jettatura. Three priests to- 
gether is a very good sign. We ought all to get along very well 
in Rome, because we see three and up to thirty priests to- 
gether.” 

“A spider is also very significant,” said Kennedy; “in the 
morning it is of bad augury, and in the evening good.” 

“ And at noon?” asked Caesar. 

* At noon,” answered Lanza, laughing, “it means nothing 
to speak of. But if you wish to make sure whether it is a 


144 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


good auspice or a bad, you kill the spider and count its legs. 
If they are an even number, it is a good omen; if uneven, bad.” 

“ But I believe spiders always have an even number of legs,” 
said Caesar. 

“ Certainly,” responded the old man; “ but my wife swears 
they do not; that she has seen many with seven and nine legs. 
It is religious unreasonableness.” 

“Are there many people like that, so credulous?” asked 
Caesar. 

“Oh, lots,” replied Lanza; “in the shops you will find 
amulets, horns, hands made of coral or horseshoes, all to keep 
away bad luck. My wife and the neighbour women play 
the lottery, by combining the numbers of their birthdays, and 
the ages of their fathers, their mothers, and their children. 
When some relative dies, they make a magic combination of 
the dates of birth and death, the day and the month, and 
buy a lottery ticket. They never win; and instead of realizing 
that their systems are of no avail, they say that they omitted 
to count in the number of letters in the name or something of 
that sort. It is comical, so much religion and so much super- 
stition.” 

“ But you confuse religion and superstition, my friend,” said 
Kennedy. 

“Tt’s all the same,” answered the old man, smiling his 
suavely ironical smile. “ There is nothing except Nature.” 

“You do not believe in miracles, Giovanni Battista? ” asked 
the Englishman. 

“Yes, I believe in the earth’s miracles, making trees and 
flowers grow, and the miracle of children’s being born from 
their mothers. The other miracles I do not believe in. What 
for? They are so insignificant beside the works of Nature! ” 

“He is a pagan,” Kennedy again stated. 


YOUNG PAINTERS 
They were chatting, when three young lads came into the 
tavern, all three having the air of artists, black clothes, soft 
hats, flowing cravats, long hair, and pipes. 


GIOVANNI BATTISTA, PAGAN 145 


“Two of them are fellow-countrymen of yours,” Kennedy 
told Caesar. 

“They are Spanish painters,” the old man added. ‘“ The 
other is a sculptor who has been in the Argentine, and he talks 
Spanish too.” 

The three entered and sat down at the same-table and were 
introduced to Caesar. Everybody chattered. Buonacossi, the 
Italian, was a real type. Of very low stature, he had a giant’s 
torso and strong little legs. His head was like a woe-begone 
eagle, his nose hooked, thin, and reddish, eyes round, and hair 
black. 

Buonacossi proved to be gay, exuberant, changeable, and 
full of vehemence. 

He explained his artistic ideas with picturesque warmth, 
mingling them with blasphemies and curses. Things struck 
him as the best or the worst in the world. For him there doubt- 
less were no middle terms. 

One of the two Spaniards was serious, grave, jaundiced, 
sour-visaged, and named Cortés; the other, large, ordinary, 
fleshy, and coarse, seemed rather a bully. 

Giovanni Battista was not able to be long outside the work- 
shop, no doubt because his conscience troubled him, and though 
with difficulty, he got up and left. Kennedy, Caesar, and the 
two Spaniards went toward the Piazza del Campidoglio, and 
Buonacossi marched off in the opposite direction. 

On reaching the Via Nazionale, Kennedy took his leave and 
Caesar remained with the two Spaniards. The red, fleshy one, 
who had the air of a bully, started in to make fun of the 
Italians, and to mimic their bows and salutes; then he said that 
he had an engagement with a woman and made haste to take 
his leave. 

When he had gone, the grave Spaniard with the sour face, 
said to Caesar: 

“That chap is like the dandies here; that’s why he imitates 
them so well.” 

Afterwards Cortés talked about his studies in painting; he 
didn’t get on well, he had no money, and anyway Rome didn’t 


146 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


please him at all. Everything seemed wrong to him, absurd, 
ridiculous. 
Caesar, after he had said good-bye to him, murmured: 
“The truth is that we Spaniards.are impossible people.” 


XVI 
THE PORTRAIT OF A POPE 


WO or three days later Caesar met the Spaniard 

Cortés in the Piazza Colonna. They bowed. The 

thin, sour-looking painter was walking with a 
beardless young German, red and snub-nosed. This young 
man was a painter too, Cortés said; he wore a green hat with 
a cock’s feather, a blue cape, thick eyeglasses, big boots, and 
had a certain air of being a blond Chinaman. 

“Would you like to come to the Doria gallery with us?” 
asked Cortés. 

“What is there to see there? ” 

‘A stupendous portrait by Velazquez.” 

“T warn you that I know nothing about pictures.” 

“Nobody does,” Cortés declared roundly. “ Everybody 
says what he thinks.” 

“Ts the gallery near here? ” 

“Yes, just a: step.” 

In company with Cortés and the German with the green hat 
with the cock’s feather, Caesar went to the Piazza del Collegio 
Romano, where the Doria palace is. They saw a lot of pictures 
which didn’t seem any better to Caesar than those in the antique 
shops and the pawnbrokers’, but which drew learned com- 
mentaries from the German. Then Cortés took them to a 
cabinet hung in green and lighted by a skylight. There was 
nothing to be seen in the cabinet except the portrait of the 
Pope. In order that people might look at it comfortably, a 
sofa had been installed facing it. 

“Ts this the Velazquez portrait?” asked Caesar. 

“This is it.” 

Caesar looked at it carefully. 

147 


148 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“That man had eaten and drunk well before his portrait 
was painted,” said Caesar; “his face is congested.” 

“It is extraordinary! ” exclaimed Cortés. “ It is something 
to see, the way this is done. What boldness! Everything 
is red, the cape, the cap, the curtains in the background. . . . 
What a man! ” 

The German aired his opinions in his own language, and 
took out a notebook and pencil and wrote some notes. 

“What sort of man was this?” asked Caesar, whom the 
technical side of painting did not preoccupy, as it did Cortés. 

“They say he was a dull man, who lived under a woman’s 
domination.” 

“The great thing is,” murmured Caesar, “ how the painter 
has left him here alive. It seems as if we had come in here 
to salute him, and he was waiting for us to speak. Those clear 
eyes are questioning us. It is curious.” 

“Not curious,” exclaimed Cortés, “ but admirable.” 

“ For me it is more curious than admirable. There is some- 
thing brutal in this Pope; through his grey beard, which is so 
thin, you can see his projecting chin. The good gentleman 
was of a marked prognathism, a type of degeneration, indiffer- 
ence, intellectual torpor, and nevertheless, he reached the top. 
Perhaps in the Church it’s the same as in water, only corks 
float.” 


LEGEND AND HISTORY 


Caesar went out of the cabinet, leaving the German and 
Cortés seated on the sofa, absorbed in the picture; he looked 
at various paintings in the gallery, went back, and sat down 
beside the artists, 

“This portrait,” he said presently, “is like history by the 
side of legend. All the other paintings in the gallery are legend, 
‘ folk-lore,’ as I believe one calls it. This one is history.” 

“ That’s what it is. It is truth,” agreed Cortés. 

“Yes, but there are people who do not like the truth, my 
friend. I tell you: this is a man of flesh, somewhat enigmatic, 
like nature herself, and with arteries in which blood flows; 


THE PORTRAIT OF A POPE 149 


this is a man who breathes and digests, and not merely a 
pleasant abstraction; you, who understand such things, will tell 
me that the drawing is perfect, and the colour such as it was 
in reality; but how about the person who doesn’t ask for 
reality? ” 

“ Stendhal, the writer, was affected that way by this picture,” 
said Cortés; “ he was shocked at its being hung among master- 
pieces.” 

“ He found it bad, no doubt.” 

“ Very bad? ” 

“ Was this Stendhal English? ” 

“No, French.” 

“‘ Ah, then, you needn’t be surprised. A Frenchman has no 
obligation to understand anything that’s not French.” 

“ Nevertheless he was an intelligent man.” 

“Did he perhaps have a good deal of veneration? ” 

“No, he boasted of not having any.” 

“ Doubtless he did have without suspecting it. With a man 
who had no veneration, what difference would it make whether 
there was one bad thing among a lot of good ones? ” 

The German with the green hat, who understood something 
of the conversation, was indignant at Caesar’s irreverent ideas. 
He asked him if he understood Latin, and Caesar told him no, 
and then, in a strange gibberish, half Latin and half Italian, 
he let loose a series of facts, dates, and numbers. Then he 
asserted that all artistic things of great merit were German: 
Greece, Rome, Gothic architecture, the Italian Renaissance, 
Leonardo da Vinci, Velazquez, all German. 

The snub-nosed young person, with his cape and his green 
hat with its cock-feather, did not let a mouse escape from his 
German mouse-trap. 

The data of the befeathered German were too much for 
Caesar, and he took his leave of the painters. 


XVII 
EVIL DAYS 


; CCOMPANIED by Kennedy, Caesar called repeatedly 


on the most auspicious members of the French clerical 

element living in Rome, and found persons more cul- 
tivated than among the rough Spanish monks; but, as was 
natural, nobody gave him any useful information offering the 
possibility of his putting his financial talents to the proof. 

“ Something must turn up,” he used to say to himself, “ and 
at the least opening we will dive into the work.” 

Caesar kept gathering notes about people who had connec- 
tions in Spain with the Black party in Rome; he called several 
times on Father Herreros, despite his uncle’s prohibition, and 
succeeded in getting the monk to write to the Marquesa de 
Montsagro, asking if there were no means of making Caesar 
Moncada, Cardinal Fort’s nephew, Conservative Deputy for her 
district. 

The Marquesa wrote back. that it was impossible; the Con- 
servative Deputy for the district was very popular and a man 
with large properties there. 

When Holy Week was over, Laura and the Countess Brenda 
and her daughter decided to spend a while at Florence, and 
invited Caesar to accompany them; but he was quite out of 
harmony with the Brenda lady, and said that he had to stay on 
in Rome. 

A few days later Mme. Dawson and her daughters left, 
and the San Martinos and the Marchesa Sciacca; and an 
avalanche of English people and Germans, armed with their 
red Baedekers, took the hotel by storm. Susanna Marchmont 
had gone to spend some days at Corfu. 

In less than a week Caesar remained alone, knowing nobody 

150 


EVIL DAYS 151 


in the hotel, and despite his believing that he was going to be 
perfectly indifferent about this, he felt deserted and sad. The 
influence of the springtime also affected him. The deep blue 
sky, cloudless, dense, dark, made him languish. Instead of 
entertaining himself with something or other, he did scarcely 
anything all day long but walk. 


TWO ABSURD MEN 


“T have continually near me in the hotel,” wrote Caesar to 
Alzugaray, “two absurd fellows: one is one of those stout red 
Germans with a square head; the other a fine slim Norwegian. 
The German, who is a captain in some service or other, is a 
restless man, always busy about what the devil I don’t know. 
He is constantly carrying about trunks and boxes, with the 
aid of a sorrowful valet, dressed in black, who appears to detest 
his position. The captain must devote the morning to doing 
gymnastics, for I hear him from my room, which is next to his, 
jumping and dropping weights on the floor, each of which must 
weigh half a ton, to judge by the noise they make. 

“He does all this to vocal commands, and when some feat 
doesn’t go right he reprimands himself. 

“This German isn’t still a moment; he opens the salon door, 
crosses the room, stands at the window, takes up a paper, puts 
it down. He is a type that makes me nervous. 

“The Norwegian at first appeared to be a reasonable man, 
somewhat sullen. He looked frowningly at me, and I watched 
him equally frowningly, and took him for a thinker, an Ibsenite 
whose imagination was lost among the ice of his own country. 
Now and then I would see him walking up and down the cor- 
ridor, rubbing his hands together so continuously and so 
frantically that they made a noise like bones. 

“ Suddenly, this gentleman is transformed as if by magic; he 
begins to joke with the servants, he seizes a chair and dances 
with it, and the other day I saw him alone in the salon marching 
around with a paper hat on his head, like children playing 
soldiers, and blowing on a cornet, also made of paper. 


152 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“T stared at him in amazement, he smiled like a child, and 
asked if he was disturbing me. 

“No, no, not in the least,’ I told him. 

“T have asked in the hotel if this man is crazy, and they 
have told me that he is not, but is a professor, a man of science, 
who is known to have these strange fits of gaiety. 

** Another of the Norwegian’s doings has been to compose 
a serenade, with a vulgar melody that would disgust you, and 
which he has dedicated ‘A la bella Italia.’ He wrote the 
Italian words himself, but as he knows no music, he had a 
pianist come here and write out his serenade. What he 
especially wants is that it should be full of sentiment; and so 
the pianist arranged it with directions and many pauses, which 
satisfied the Norwegian. Almost every night the serenade ‘A 
la bella Italia’ is sung. Somebody who wants to amuse him- 
self goes to the piano, the Norwegian strikes a languid attitude 
and chants his serenade. Sometimes he goes in front of the 
piano, sometimes behind, but invariably he hears the storm 
of applause when it ends, and he bows with great gusto. 

“IT don’t know whether it’s the other people who are laugh- 
ing at him, or he who is laughing at the others. 

“The other day he said to me in his macaronic Italian: 

““* Mr. Spaniard, I have good eyesight, good hearing, a good 
sense of smell, and . . . lots of sentiment.’ 

“ T didn’t exactly understand what he meant me to think, and 
I didn’t pay any attention to him. 

“ Tt seems that the Norwegian is going away soon, and as the 
day of his departure approaches, he grows funereal.” 


THE SADNESS OF LIFE 


“1 don’t know why I don’t go away,” Caesar wrote to his 
friend another time. ‘“‘ When I go out in the evening and see 
the ochre-coloured houses on both sides and the blue sky above, 
a horrible sadness takes me. ‘These spring days oppress me, 
make me want to weep; it seems to me it would be better to be 
dead, leaving no tomb or name or other ridiculous and disagree- 


EVIL DAYS 153 


able thing, but disappearing into the air or the sea. It doesn’t 
seem natural; but I have never been so happy as one time 
when I was in Paris sick, alone and with a fever. I was in 
an hotel room and my window looked into the garden of a fine 
house, where I could see the tops of the trees; and I transformed 
them into a virgin forest, wherein marvellous adventures hap- 
pened to me. 

“Since then I have often thought that things are probably 
neither good nor bad, neither sad nor happy, in themselves; 
he who has sound, normal nerves, and a brain equally sound, 
reflects the things around him like a good mirror, and feels 
with comfort the impression of his conformity to nature; nowa- 
days we who have nerves all upset and brains probably upset 
too, form deceptive reflections. And so, that time in Paris, sick 
and shut in, I was happy; and here, sound and strong, when 
toward nightfall, I look at the splendid skies, the palaces, the 
yellow walls that take an extraordinary tone, I feel that I am 
one of the most miserable men on the planet... .” 


ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON 


His lack of tranquillity led Caesar to make absurd resolutions 
which he didn’t carry out. 

One Sunday in the beginning of April, he went out into the 
street, disposed to take a walk outside of Rome, following the 
road anywhere it led. A hard, fine rain was falling, the sky 
was grey, the air mild, the streets were full of puddles, the 
shops closed; a few fiower merchants were offering branches of 
almond in blossom. 

Caesar was very depressed. He went into a church to get 
out of the rain. The church was full; there were many people 
in the centre of it; he didn’t know what they were doing. 
Doubtless they were gathered there for some reason, although 
Caesar didn’t understand what. Caesar sat down on a bench, 
worn out; he would have liked to listen to organ music, to a 
boy choir. No ideas occurred to him but sentimental ones. 
Some time passed, and a priest began to preach. 


154 CAESAR OR NOTHING ' 


Caesar got up and went into the street. 

“T must get rid of these miserable impressions, get back to 
noble ideas. I must fight this sentimental leprosy.” 

He started to walk with long strides through the sad, empty 
streets. 

He went toward the river and met Kennedy, who was coming 
back, he told him, from the studio of a sculptor friend of his. 

“ You look like desolation. What has happened to you?” 

“ Nothing, but I am in a perfectly hellish humour.” 

“Tam melancholy too. It must be the weather. Let’s take 
a walk.” 

They went along the bank of the Tiber. Full of clay, more 
turbid than ever, and very high between the white embankments 
hemming it in, the river looked like a big sewer. 

“This is not the ‘ coeruleus Tibris’ that Virgil speaks of in 
the Aineid, which presented itself to AZneas in the form of an 
ancient man with his head crowned with roses,” said Kennedy. 

“No. This is a horrible river,” Caesar opined. 

They followed the shore, passed the Castel Sant’ Angelo and 
the bridge with the statues. 

From the embankment, to the right, they could now see 
narrow lanes, sunk almost below the level of the river. On 
the other bank a new, white, edifice towered in the rain. 

They went as far as the Piazza d’Armi, and then came back 
at nightfall to Rome. The rain was gradually ceasing and the 
sky looked less threatening. A file of greenish gaslights fol- 
lowed the river-wall and then crossed over the bridge. 

They walked to the Piazza del Popolo and through the Via 
Babuino to the Piazza di Spagna. 

“Would you like to go to a Benedictine abbey tomorrow? ” 
asked Kennedy. 

“ All right.” 


“And if you are still melancholy, we will leave you there.” 
THE ABBEY 


The next day, after lunch, Kennedy and Caesar went to visit 
the abbey of Sant’ Anselmo on the Aventine. The abbot, Hilde- 


EVIL DAYS 155 


brand, was a friend of Kennedy’s, and like him an Englishman. 

They took a carriage and Kennedy told it to stop at the 
church of Santa Sabina. 

“Tt is still too early to go to the abbey. Let us look at this 
church, which is the best preserved of all the old Roman ones.” 

They entered the church; but it, was so cold there that Caesar 
went out again directly and waited in the porch. There was 
a man there selling rosaries and photographs who spoke scarcely 
any Italian or-French, but did speak Spanish. Probably he 
was a Jew. 

Caesar asked him where they manufactured those religious 
toys, and the pedlar told him in Westphalia. 

Kennedy went to look at a picture by Sassoferrato, which is 
in one of the chapels, and meanwhile the rosary-seller showed 
the church door to Caesar and explained the different bas-re- 
liefs, cut in cypress wood by Greek artists of the V Century, 
and representing scenes from the Old and New Testaments. 

Kennedy came back, they got into the carriage again, and 
they drove to the Benedictine abbey. 

“Ts the abbot Hildebrandus here? ” asked Kennedy. 

Out came the abbot, a man of about fifty, with a gold cross 
on his breast. They exchanged a few friendly ms and the 
superior showed them the convent. 

The refectory was clean and very spacious; the thaw table of 
shining wood; the floor made of mosaic. The crypt held a 
.statue, which Caesar assumed must be of Sant’ Anselmo. The 
church was severe, without ornaments, without pictures; it had 
a primitive air, with its columns of fine granite that looked 
like marble. A monk was playing the harmonium, and in the 
opaque veiled light, the thin music gave a strange impression 
of something quite outside this life. 

Afterwards they crossed a large court with palm-trees. They 
went up to the second story, and down a corridor with cells, 
each of which had on the lintel the name of the patron saint 
of the respective monk. Each door had a card with the name 
of the occupant of the room. 

It looked more like a bath-house than a monastery. The 


156 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


cells were comfortable inside, without any air of sadness; each 
held a bed, a divan, and a small bookcase. 

By a window at the end of the passage, one could see, far 
away, the Alban Hills, looking like a blue mountain-range, half 
hidden in white haze, and nearby one could see the trees in the 
_ Protestant cemetery and the pyramid of Caius Cestius close to 
them. 

Caesar felt a sort of deep repugnance for the people shut up 
here, remote from life and protected from it by a lot of things. 

“The man who is playing the harmonium in this church with 
its opaque light, is a coward,” he said to himself. “ One must 
live and struggle in the open air, among men, in the midst 
of their passions and hatreds, even though one’s miserable nerves 
quiver and tremble.” 

After showing them the monastery, the abbot Hildebrand took 
them to his study, where he worked at revising ancient transla- 
tions of the Bible. He had photographic copies of all the Latin 
texts and he was collating them with the original. 

They talked of the progress of the Church, and the abbot 
commented with some contempt on the worldly success of the 
Jesuit churches, with their saints who serve as well to get hus- 
bands and rich wives as to bring winning numbers in the 
lottery. 

Before going out, they went to a window, at the other end of 
the corridor from where they had looked out before. Below 
them they could see the Tiber as far as the Ripa harbour; op- 
posite, the heights of the Janiculum, and further, Saint Peter’s: 

When they went out, Kennedy said to Caesar: 

“What devilish effect has the abbey produced in you, that 
you are so much gayer than when we went in?” 

“Tt has confirmed me in my idea, which I b«? lost for a 
few days.” 

“‘ What idea is that? ” 

“That we must not defend ourselves in this life, but attack, 
always attack.” 


“ And now you are contented at having found it again? ” 
“ Yes.” 


EVIL DAYS 157 


PIRANESI’S GARDEN 


“T am glad, because you have such a pitiable air when you 
are sad. Would you like to go to the Priory of Malta, which is 
only a step from here? ” 

“ Good.”’ 

They went down in the carriage to the Priory of Malta. 
They knocked at the gate and a woman came out who knew 
Kennedy, and who told them to wait a moment and she would 
open the church. 

“ Here,” said Kennedy, “ you have all that remains of the 
famous Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. That anti-historic 
man Bonaparte rooted it out of Malta. The Order attempted 
to establish itself in Catania, and afterwards at Ferrara, and 
finally took refuge here. Now it has no property left, and all 
that remains are its memories and its archives.” 

“That is how our descendants will see our Holy Mother the 
Church. In Chicago or Boston some traveller will find an 
abandoned chapel, and will ask: ‘What is this?’ And they 
will tell him: ‘This is what remains of the Catholic Church.’ ” 

“ Don’t talk like an Homais,” said Kennedy. 

“T don’t know who Homais is,” retorted Caesar. 

“An atheistical druggist in Flaubert’s novel, Madame 
Bovary. Haven’t you read it?” 

“Yes; I have a vague idea that I have read it. A very heavy 
thing; yes, . .. I think I have read it.” 

The woman opened the door and they went into the church. 
It was small, overcharged with ornaments. They saw the tomb 
of Bishop Spinelli and Giotto’s Virgin, and then went into a 
hall gay with red flags with a white cross, on whose walls they 
could read the names of the Grand Masters of the Order of 
Malta. The majority of the names were French and Polish. 
Two or three were Spanish, and among them that of Caesar 
Borgia. 

“ Your countryman and namesake was also a Grand Master 
of Malta,” said Kennedy. 

“So it seems,” replied Caesar with indifference. 


158 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“T see that you speak with contempt of that extraordinary 
man. Is he not congenial to you? ” 

“ The fact is I don’t know his history.” 

“ Really?” 

“Yes, really.” 

“ How strange! We must go tomorrow to the Borgia Apart- 
ment in the Vatican.” 

“ Good.” 

They saw the model of an ancient galley which was in the 
same hall, and went out through the church into the garden 
planned by Piranesi. The woman showed them a very old 
palm, with a hole in it made by a hand-grenade in the year ’49. 
It had remained that way more than half a century, and it 
was only a few days since the trunk of the palm had broken. 

From the garden they went, by a path between trees, to the 
bastion of Paul III, a little terrace, from which they could 
see the Tiber at their feet, and opposite the panorama of Rome 
and its environs, in the light of a beautiful spring sun- 
shite...‘ . 


XVIII 


CAESAR BORGIA’S MOTTO, “AUT CAESAR, AUT 
NIHIL” 


THE BORGIAS 


HE next day was one of the days for visiting the Borgia 

Apartment. Caesar and Kennedy met in the Piazza 

di San Pietro, went into the Vatican museum, and 

walked by a series of stairs and passageways to the Gallery 
of Inscriptions. 

Then they went down to a hall, at whose door there were 
guards dressed in slashed clothes, which were parti-coloured, 
red, yellow, and black. Some of them carried lances and others 
swords. 

“Why are the guards here dressed differently?” asked 
Caesar. 

“ Because this belongs to the Dominions of the Pope.” 

“ And what kind of guards are these? ” 

“These are pontifical Swiss guards.” 

“They look comic-opera enough,” said Caesar. 

“My dear man, don’t say that. This costume was designed 
by no one less than Michelangelo.” 

“ All right. At that time they probably looked very well, 
but now they have a theatrical effect.’ 

“It is because you have no veneration. If you were reveren- 
tial, they would look wonderful to you.” 

“Very well, let us wait and see whether reverence will not 
spring up in me. Now, you go on and explain what there is 
here.” 

“ This first room, the Hall of Audience, or of the Popes, does 
not contain anything notable, as you see,” said Kennedy; “ the 
five we are coming to later, have been restored, but are still the 
same as at the time when your countryman Alexander VI was 

159 


160 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


Pope. All five were decorated by Pinturicchio and his pupils, 
and all with reference to the Borgias. The Borgias have their 
history, not well known in all its details, and their legend, which 
is more extensive and more picturesque. Really, it is not easy 
to distinguish one from the other.” 

“ Let’s have the history and the legend mixed.” 

““T will give you a résumé in a few words. Alfonso Borja 
was a Valencian, born at Jatiba; he was secretary to the King 
or Aragon; then Bishop of Valencia, later Cardinal, and lastly 
Pope, by the name of Calixtus III. While Calixtus lives, the 
Spaniards are all-powerful in Rome. Calixtus protects his 
nephews, sons of his sister Isabel and a Valencian named 
Lanzol or Lenzol. These nephews drop their original name 
and take their mother’s, Italianizing its spelling to Borgia. 
Their uncle, the Pope, appoints the elder, Don Pedro Luis, 
Captain of the Church; the second, Don Rodriguez. . . .” 

“Don Rodriguez?” said Caesar. “In Spanish you can’t 
say Don Rodriguez.” 

“ Gregorovius calls him that.” 

“ Then Gregorovius, no doubt, knew no Spanish.” 

“In Latin he is called Rodericus.” 

“Then it should be Don Rodrigo.” 

“All right, Rodrigo. Well, this Don Rodrigo, also from 
Jatiba, his uncle makes a Cardinal, and at the death of Pedro 
Luis, he calls him to Rome. Rodrigo has had several children 
before becoming a Cardinal, and apparently he feels no great 
enthusiasm for ecclesiastical dignities; but when he finds him- 
self in Rome, the ambition to be Pope assails him, and at the 
death of Innocent VIII, he buys the tiara? Is it legend or 
history that he bought the tiara? That is not clear. Now we 
will go in and see the portrait of Rodrigo Borgia, who in the 
series of Popes, bears the name Alexander VI.” 


ALEXANDER VI AND HIS BROTHER 


Kennedy and Caesar entered the first room, the Hall of the 
Mysteries, and the Englishman stopped in front of a picture of 
the Resurrection. 


CAESAR BORGIA’S MOTTO 161 


“Here you have Alexander VI, on his knees, adoring Christ 
who is leaving the tomb. He is the type of a Southerner; he 
has a hooked nose, a long head, tonsured, a narrow forehead, 
thick lips, a heavy beard, a strong neck, and small chubby 
hands. He wears a papal robe of gold, covered with jewels; 
the tiara is on the ground beside him. Of the soldiers, it is 
supposed that the one asleep by the sepulchre and the one who 
is waking and rising up, pulling himself to his knees by the 
aid of his lance, are two of the Pope’s sons, Caesar and the 
Duke of Gandia. I rather believe that the little soldier with 
the lance is a woman, perhaps Lucrezia. How does your 
countryman strike you, my friend? ” 

“He is of Mediterranean race, a dolichocephalic Iberian; he 
has the small melon-shaped head, the sensual features. He is 
leptorrhine. He comes of an intriguing, commercial, lying, and 
charlatan race.” 

“To which you have the honour to belong,” said Kennedy, 
laughing. 

“ Certainly.” 

“ They say this man was a great enthusiast about his country- 
men and the customs of his country. These tiles, which are 
remains of the original floor, and the plates you see here, are 
Valencian. A Spanish painter told me that several letters of 
Alexander VI’s are preserved in the archives of the cathedral 
at Valencia, one among them asking to have tiles sent.” 

Kennedy walked forward a little and planted himself before 
an Assumption of the Virgin, and said: 

“It is supposed that this gloomy man dressed in red, with a 
little fringe of hair on his brow, is a brother of the Pope’s.” 

“ A bad type to encounter in the Tribunal of the Inquisition,” 
said Caesar; “ imagine what this red-robed fellow would have 
done with that Jew at the Excelsior, Sefior Pereira, if he had 
happened to have him in his power.” 

“In the soffits,” Kennedy went on, “as you see, are repeti- 
tions of the symbols of Iris, Osiris, and the bull Apis, doubt- 
less because of their resemblance to the Christian symbols, and 
also because the bull Apis recalls the bull in the Borgia arms.” 


162 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“Their arms were a bull?” 

“Yes; it was a ’scutcheon invented by some king-at-arms or 
other, a symbol of ferocity and strength.” 

“ Were they of a noble family, these Borgias? ” 

“No, probably not. Though I believe some people sup- 
pose that they were descended from the Aragonese family of 
Atarés. Now that we know Alexander VI, let us take a glance 
at his court. It has often been said, and is no doubt taken 
from Vasari’s book, that in the Borgia Apartment Pinturicchio 
painted Pope Alexander VI adoring the Virgin represented 
under the likeness of his beloved, Julia Farnese. The critic 
must have been confused, because none of these madonnas re- 
calls the face of Giulia la bella, whom people used to call the 
Bride of Christ. The picture that Vasrri refers to must be one 
in the museum at Valencia.” 


THE HALL OF THE SAINTS 


They went into another room, the Hall of the Saints, and 
Kennedy took Caesar in front of the fresco called, The Dispute 
of Saint Catherine with the Emperor Maximian. 

“ The place of this scene,” said Kennedy, “ Pinturicchio has 
set in front of the Arch of Constantine. The artist has added 
the inscription Pacis Cultori, and below he has embossed the 
Borgia bull. The subject is the discussion between the 
Emperor and the saint. Maximian, seated on a throne under 
a canopy, is listening to Saint Catherine, who counts on her 
fingers the arguments she has been using in the dispute. Who 
was it served as model for the figure of Maximian? At first 
they imagined it was Caesar Borgia; but as you may observe, 
the appearance of the Emperor is that of a man of twenty odd 
years, and when Pinturicchio painted this, Caesar was about 
seventeen. So it is more logical to suppose that the model must 
have been the Pope’s eldest son, the Duke of Gandia. A 
chronicler of the period says that this Duke of Gandia was good 
among the great, as his brother Caesar was great among the 
wicked. Also, legend or history, whichever it be, says that 
Caesar procured his elder brother’s murder in a corner of the 





CAESAR BORGIA’S MOTTO 163 


Ghetto, and that the Pope on learning of it, became as if crazy, 
and went into the full Consistory with his garments torn and 
ashes on his head.” 

“What love for traditional symbolism! ” said Caesar. 

“Everybody is not so anti-traditional as you. I will go on 
with my explanation,” added Kennedy. “ Saint Catherine has 
Lucrezia’s features. She is small and slender. She wears her 
hair down, a little cap with a pearl cross which hangs on her 
forehead, and a collar also of pearls. She has large eyes, a 
candid expression. Cagnolo da Parma will say of her, when 
she goes to Ferrara, that she has ‘il naso profilato e bello, iu 
capelli aurei, gli occhi bianchi, la bocca alquanto grande con 
li denti candidissimi.’ Literature will portray this sweet-faced 
little blond girl as a Messalina, a poisoner, and incestuous with 
her brothers and her father. At this time Lucrezia had just 
married Giovanni Sforza, although as a matter of fact the two 
never lived together. Giovanni Sforza is the little young man 
who appears there in the back of the picture riding a spirited 
horse. Sforza wears his hair like a woman, and has a broad- 
brimmed hat and a red mantle. -A little later Caesar Borgia 
will try several times to assassinate him.” 

“ What for? ” asked Caesar. 

“No doubt he found him in the way. The man who is in the 
foreground, next to the Emperor’s throne, is Andrew Paleo- 
logos,” Kennedy continued. ‘“ He is the one wearing a pale 
purple cloak and looking so melancholy. It used to be sup- 
posed that he was Giovanni Borgia. Now they say that it is 
Paleologos, whom the death of the Emperor Constantine XIII, 
about this time, had caused to lose the crown of Byzance. 

“ Here at the right, riding a Barbary horse, is Prince Djem, 
second son of Muhammad II, whom Alexander VI kept as a 
hostage. Djem, as you see, has an expressive face, a prominent 
nose, lively eyes, a long pointed beard, a shock of hair, and a 
big turban. He rides Moorish fashion, with his stirrups very 
short, and wears a curved cutlass in his belt. He is a great 
friend of Caesar Borgia’s, which does not prevent Caesar and 
his father, according to public rumour, from poisoning him at a 


164 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


farewell banquet in Capua. And here is Giovanni Sforza 
again, on foot. Are those two children the younger sons of 
Alexander VI? Or are they Lucrezia and Caesar again? I 
don’t know. Behind Paleologos are the Pope’s domestic re- 
tainers, and among them Pinturicchio himself.” 


THE LIFE OF CAESAR BORGIA 


After explaining the picture in detail, Kennedy went into 
the next room, followed by Caesar. This is called the Hall of 
the Liberal Arts, and is adorned with a large marble mantel. 

“Is there no portrait here of Caesar Borgia? ” asked Caesar. 

“No. Here I have a photograph of the one by Giorgione,” 
said Kennedy, showing a postal card. 

“What sort of man was he? What did he do?” 

Kennedy seated himself on a bench near the window and 
Caesar sat beside him. 

“Caesar Borgia,” said Kennedy, “came to Rome from the 
university of Pisa, approximately at the time when they made 
his father Pope. He must then have been about twenty, and 
was strong and active. He broke in horses, was an expert 
fencer and shot, and killed bulls in the ring.” 

“ That too?” 

- “He was a good Spaniard. In a court that cannot be seen 
from here, on account of those thick panes, but on which these 
windows look, Caesar Borgia fought bulls, and the Pope stood 
here to watch his son’s dexterity with the sword.” 

“ What ruffians! ” exclaimed Caesar, smiling. 

The Englishman continued with the history of Borgia, his 
intrigues with the King of France, the death of Lucrezia’s 
husband, the assassinations attributed to the Pope’s son, the 
mysterious execution of Ramiro del Orco, which made 
Machiavelli say that Caesar Borgia was the prince who best 
knew how to make and unmake men, according to their merits; 
finally the coup d’état at Sinigaglia with the condottieri. 

By this time Caesar Moncada was very anxious to know 
more. These Borgias interested him. His sympathies went out 
toward those great bandits who dominated Rome and tried to 


CAESAR BORGIA’S MOTTO 165 


get all Italy into their power, leaf by leaf, like an artichoke. 
Their purpose struck him as a good one, almost a moral one. 
The device, Aut Caesar, aut nihil, was worthy of a man of 
energy and courage. 

Kennedy seeing Caesar’s interest, then recounted the scene at 
Cardinal Adrian Corneto’s country-house; Alexander’s intention 
to give a supper there to various Cardinals and poison them 
all with a wine that had been put into three bottles, so as to 
inherit from them, the superstitiousness of the Pope, who sent 
Cardinal Caraffa to the Vatican for a golden box in which he 
kept his consecrated Host, from which he was never separated; 
and the mistake of the chamberlain, who served the poisoned 
wine to Caesar and his father. 

“ Here, to this very room, they brought the dying Pope,” said 
Kennedy, and pointed to a door, on whose marble lintel one 
may read: Alexander Borgia Valentin P. P. ‘They say he 
passed eight days here between life and death, before he did die, 
and that when his corpse was exposed, it decomposed horribly.” 

Then Kennedy related the story of Caesar’s trying to cure 
himself by the strange method of being put inside of a mule just 
dead; his flight from Rome, sick on a litter, with his soldiers, 
as far as the Romagna; his imprisonment in the Castel Sant’ 
Angelo; his capture by the Great Captain; his efforts to escape 
from his prison at Medina del Campo; and his obscure death 
on the Mendavia road, near Viana in Navarre, through one of 
the Count of Lerin’s soldiers, named Garcés, a native of Agreda, 
who gave Borgia such a blow with a lance that it broke his 
armour and passed all the way through his body. 

Caesar was stirred up. Hearing the story of the people who 
had lived there, in those very rooms, gave him an impression 
of complete reality. 

When they went out again by the Gallery of Inscriptions, they 
looked from a window. 

“It must have been here that he fought bulls? ” said Caesar. 

“a Yes.”’ 

_ The court was large, with a fountain of four streams in the 
middle. 


166 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“Life then must have been more intense than now,” said 
Caesar. 

“Who knows? Perhaps it was the same as now,” replied 
Kennedy. 

“ And what does history, exact history, say of these Borgias? ” 

“Of Pope Alexander VI it says that he had his children in 
wedlock; that he was a good administrator; that the people were 
content with him; that the influence of Spain was justifiable, 
because he was Spanish; that the story of the poisonings does 
not seem certain; and that he himself could hardly have died 
of poison, but rather of a malarial fever.” 

“ And about Lucrezia? ” ; 

“ Of Lucrezia it says that she was a woman like those of her 
period; that there are no proofs for belief in her incests and her 
poisonings; and that her first marriages, which were never really 
consummated, were nothing more than political moves of her 
father and her brother’s.” 

“ And about Caesar? ” 

“ Caesar is the one member of the family who appears really 
terrible. His device, Aut Caesar, aut nihil, was not a chance 
phrase, but the irrevocable decision to be a king or to be noth- 
ing.” 

“ That, at least, is not a mystification,” murmured Caesar. 


IN FRONT OF THE CASTEL SANT’ ANGELO 


They left the Vatican, crossed the Piazza di San Pietro, and 
drew near the river. 

As they passed in front of the Castel Sant’ Angelo, Kennedy 
said: 

“ Alexander VI shut himself up in this castle to weep for 
the Duke of Gandia. From one of those windows he watched 
the funeral procession of his son, whom they were carrying to 
Santa Maria del Popolo. According to old Italian custom they 
bore the corpse in an open casket. The funeral was at night, 
and two hundred men with torches lighted the way When the 
cortége set foot on this bridge, the Pope’s retinue saw him 
draw back with horror, and cover his face, crying out sharply.” 


XIX 
CAESAR’S REFLECTIONS 


Alzugaray, “to inform myself about the life of the 

Borgias, and going on from one to another, I reached 
Saint Francis Borgia; and from Saint Francis I have gone back- 
wards to Saint Ignatius Loyola. 

“The parallelism between the doings of Caesar Borgia and 
of Ifigo de Loyola surprised me; what one tried to do in the 
sphere of action, the other did in the sphere of thought. These 
twin Spanish figures, both odious to the masses, have given its 
direction to the Church; one, Loyola, through the impulse to 
spiritual power; the other, Caesar Borgia, through the impulse 
to temporal power. 

“One may say that Spain gave Papal Rome its thought and 
activity, as it gave the Rome of the Caesars also its thought 
and activity, through Seneca and Trajan. 

“ Really it is curious to see the traces that remain in Rome 
of that Basque, Ifigo. That half farceur, half ruffian, who 
had the characteristics of a modern anarchist, was a genius for 
organization. Bakunin and Mazzini are poor devils beside 
him. The Church still lives through Loyola. He was her 
last reformer. 

“ The Society of Jesus is the knot of the whole Catholic scaf- 
folding; the Jesuits know that on the day when this knot, which 
their Society forms, is cut or pulled open, the whole frame-work 
of out-of-date ideas and lies, which defends the Vatican, will 
come down with a terrible noise. 

“Rome lives on Jesuitism. Indubitably, without Loyola, 


Catholicism would have rotted away much sooner. It is obvious 
167 


“| HAVE had the curiosity,” Caesar wrote to his friend 


168 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


that this would have been better, but we are not talking about 
that. A good general is not one who defends just causes, but 
one who wins battles. 

“The Borgias, Luther, and Saint Ignatius, between them, 
killed the predominance of the Latin race. 

“The Borgias threw discredit on the free Renaissance life, 
before the face of all nations; Luther removed the centre of 
spiritual life and philosophy to Germany and England; Saint 
Ignatius prevented Roman Catholicism from rotting away; he 
put iron braces on the body that was doubling over with weak- 
ness, and inside his braces the body has gone on decomposing 
and has poisoned the Latin countries. 

“On hearing this opinion here, they asked me: 

“¢ Then you think Catholicism is dead?’ 

“No, no; as to having any civilizing effect, it is dead; but 
as to having a sentimental effect, it is very much alive... 
and it will still unfortunately keep on being alive. All this 
business of the Virgin del Pilar and the Virgin del Carmen, 
and saints, and processions, and magnificent churches, is a 
terrible strength. . . . If there were an emancipated bourgeoisie 
and a sensible working class, Catholicism would not be a peril; 
but there are not, and Catholicism will have, not perhaps an 
overpowering expansion, but at least moments of new growth. 
While we have a lazy rich class and a brutalized poor class, 
Catholicism will be strong.’ 

“ Leaving the utilitarian and moral questions aside, and con- 
sidering merely the amount of influence and the traces left 
by this influence, one can see that Rome is living on Loyola’s 
work and still dreaming of Borgia’s. ‘Those pilgrims in the 
Piazza di San Pietro who enthusiastically yell, Viva il Papa-re! 
are acclaiming the memory of Caesar Borgia. Thus you have 
the absurd result, people who speak with horror of an historic 
figure and still hold his work in admiration. 

“This Spanish influence that our country gave to the Church 
in two ways, spiritual and material,— to the Church which now 
is an institution not merely foreign but contrary to our 
nature,— Spain ought today to try to use in her own behalf. 


CEASAR’S REFLECTIONS 169 


Spain’s work ought to be to organize extra-religious individual- 
ism. 

“We are individualists; therefore what we need is an iron 
discipline, like soldiers. 

“This discipline established, we ought to spread it through 
the contiguous countries, especially through Africa. Democracy, 
the Republic, Socialism, have not, essentially, any root in our 
land. Families, cities, classes, can be united in a pact; isolated 
men, like us, can be united only by discipline. 

“Moreover, as for us, we do not recognize prestige, nor do 
we cheerfully accept either kings or presidents or high priests 
or grand magi. 

“The only thing that would suit us would be to have a chief 
. . . for the pleasure of eating him alive. 

“A Loyola of the extra-religious individualism is what Spain 
needs. Deeds, always deeds, and a cold philosophy, realistic, 
based on deeds, and a morality based on action. Don’t you 
agree? 

“T think, and I am becoming more confirmed in my opinion, 
that the only people who can give a direction, found a new 
civilization with its own proper characteristics, for that old 
Iberian race, which probably sprang from the shores of the 
Mediterranean . . . is we Spaniards. 

“‘* Why only you Spaniards?’ my friend Kennedy asked me; 
and I told him: 

““*’'To me it seems indubitable. France is leaning constantly 
more towards the North. In Italy the same is true; Milan and 
Turin, where the Saxon and the Gaul predominate, are the real 
capitals of Italy. In Spain, however, this does not happen. 
We are separated from the rest of Europe by the Pyrenees, and 
joined to Africa by the sea and climate. Our plan ought to be 
to construct a great European Empire, to impose our ideas on 
the peninsula, and then to spread them everywhere.’ ” 


XX 
DON CALIXTO AT SAINT PETER’S 


DON CALIXTO UNDERSTANDS 


ENNEDY was anxious that Caesar should turn into the 
good road. The good road, for him, was art. 

“ At heart,” the Englishman informed him, “I 
am one of those Brothers of the Esthetic Doctrine who irritate 
you, and I must instruct you in the faith.” 

“T am not opposed to your trying to instruct me.” 

The two went several times to see museums, especially the 
Vatican museum. 

One day, on leaving the Sistine Chapel, where they had had 
a long discussion on the merits of Michelangelo, Caesar met 
the painter Cortés, who came to speak to him. 

“T am here with a gentleman from my town, who is a 
Senator,” said Cortés. ‘A boresome old boy. Shall I intro- 
duce him? ” 

“ All right.” 

“ He is an old fool who knows nothing about anything and 
talks about everything.” 

Cortés presented Caesar to Don Calixto Garcia Guerrero, a 
man of some fifty-odd, Senator and boss of the province of 
Zamora. 

Don Calixto invited Caesar and Kennedy to dine with him. 
The Englishman expressed regrets, and Caesar said he would 
go. They took leave of Cortés and Don Calixto, and went out 
to the Piazza di San Pietro. 

“T imagine you are going to be bored tomorrow dining with 
that old countryman of yours,” said Kennedy. 

170 


eS 


AT SAINT PETER’S 171 


“Oh, surely. He has all the signs of a soporific person; but 
who knows? a type like that sometimes has influence.” 

“So you are dining with him with a more or less practical 
object? ” 

“Why, of course.” 

The next evening, Caesar, in his evening clothes, betook him- 
self to an hotel in the Piazza di Spagna, where Don Calixto 
Garcia Guerrero was staying. Don Calixto received him very 
cordially. He doubtless knew that Caesar was nephew to 
Cardinal Fort and brother to a marchioness, and doubtless that 
flattered Don Calixto. 

Don Calixto honoured Caesar with an excellent dinner, and 
during dessert became candid with him. He had come to Rome 
to put through his obtaining a Papal title. He was a friend 
of the Spanish Ambassador to the Vatican, and it wouldn’t have 
cost him any more to be made a prince, a duke, or a marquis; 
but he preferred the title of count. He had a magnificent estate 
called La Sauceda, and he wanted to be the Count de la Sau- 
ceda. 

Caesar comprehended that this gentleman might be fortune 
coming in the guise of chance, and he set himself to making 
good with him, to telling him stories of aristocratic life in Rome, 
some of which he had read in books, and some of which he 
had heard somewhere or other. 

“What vices must exist here!” Don Calixto kept exclaim- 
ing. ‘“ That is why they say: ‘Roma veduta, fede perduta.’” 

Caesar noted that Don Calixto had a great enthusiasm for 
the aristocracy; and so he took pains, every time he talked with 
him, to mix the names of a few princes and marquises into 
the conversation; he also gave him to understand that he lived 
among them, and went so far as to hint the possibility of being 
of service to him in Rome, but in a manner ambiguous enough 
to permit of withdrawing the offer in case of necessity. For- 
tunately for Caesar, Don Calixto had his affairs all completely 
arranged; the one thing he desired was that Caesar, whom he 
supposed to be an expert on archeological questions, should go 
about with him the three or four days he expected to remain 


172 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


in Rome. He had spent a whole week making calls, and as yet 
had seen nothing. 

Caesar had no other recourse but to buy a Baedeker and read 
it and learn a lot of things quite devoid of interest for him. 

The next day Don Calixto was waiting for him in a carriage 
at the door, and they went to see the sights. 

Don Calixto was a man that made phrases and ornamented 
them with many adverbs ending in -ly. 

“ Verily,” he said, after his first archeological walk in Rome, 
“ verily, it seems strange that after more than two thousand years 
have passed, all these monuments should still remain.” 

“ That is most true,” replied Caesar, looking at him with his 
impassive air. 

“I understand why Rome is the real school for learning, 
integrally, both ancient and modern history.” 

“ Most certainly,” agreed Caesar. 

Don Calixto, who knew neither Italian nor French, found a 
source of help, for the days he was to spend in Rome, in Caesar’s 
friendship, and made him accompany him everywhere. Caesar 
was able to collect and preserve, though not precisely cut in 
brass, the phrases Don Calixto uttered in front of the principal 
monuments of Rome. 

In front of the Colosseum, his first exclamation was: ‘“ What 
a lot of stone!” Then recalling his rdéle of orator, he ex- 
claimed: ‘The spirits are certainly daunted and the mind 
darkened on thinking how men could have sunk to such abysses 
of evil.” 

“Don Calixto is referring to those holes,” thought Caesar, 
looking at the cellars of the Circo Romano. 

From the Colosseum the carriage went to the Capitol, and 
then Don Calixto asserted with energy: 

“One cannot deny that, say what you will, Rome is one of 
the places most fertile in memories.” 

Don Calixto was an easy traveller for his cicerone. He 
far preferred talking to being given explanations; Caesar had 
said tohim: “ Don Calixto, you understand everything, by in- 
tuition.” 


AT SAINT PETER’S 173 


And being thus reassured, Don Calixto kept uttering terrible 
absurdities. 

One day Don Calixto went to see the Pope, in evening clothes 
and with his abdomen covered with decorations, and he asked 
Caesar if a photographer couldn’t take his picture in the act of 
leaving the carriage, so that the photograph would have Saint 
Peter’s as a background. 

“Yes, I think so. Why not? The only thing will be that 
the photographer will charge you more.” 

“T don’t mind that. Could you arrange it for me?” 

“Yes, man.” 

What Don Calixto desired was done. 

“ How did the Pope impress you? ” Caesar asked him as he 
came out. 

“Very favourably, very favourably indeed.” 

“ He has a stupid face, hasn’t he? ” 

“No, man, not at all. He is like a nice country priest. His 
predecessor was no doubt more of a diplomat, more intelligent.” 

“Yes, the other seemed more of a rogue,” said Caesar, laugh- 
ing at the precautions Don Calixto took in giving his opinion. 

The proofs of the photographs came in the evening, and Don 
Calixto was enchanted with them. In one of them you could 
see the Swiss guard at the door, with his lance. It was 
splendid. Don Calixto would not permit Caesar to go to his 
hotel, but invited him for dinner; and after dinner told him 
he was so indebted that he would be delighted to do anything 
Caesar asked him. 

“Why don’t you make me a Deputy? ” said Caesar, laughing. 

“Do you want to be one? ” 

“Yes, man.” 

“ Really? ” 

“T should think so.” 

“But you would have to live in Madrid.” 

“ Certainly.” 

* Would you leave here? ” 

“Yes, why not? ” 

“Then, not another word, we will say no more about it. 


174 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


When the time comes, you will write to me and say: ‘Don 
Calixto, the moment has arrived for a to remember your 
promise: I want to be a Deputy.’ ” 

“Very good. I will do it, and you shall present me as 
candidate for Castro . . . Castro. . . what?” 

“Castro Duro.” 

“ You will see me there then.” 

“ All right. And now, another favour. There is a Canon 
from Zamora here, a friend of mine, who came on the pilgrimage 
and who desires nothing so much as to see Saint Peter’s and 
the Catacombs rather thoroughly. I could explain everything 
to him, but I am not sure about the dates. Will you come with 
us?” 

“With great pleasure.” 

“Then we shall expect you here at ten.” 

“That will be fine.” 

Sure enough, at ten Caesar was there. Don Calixto and his 
friend the Canon Don Justo, who was a large gentleman, tall 
and fleshy and with a long nose, were waiting. ‘The three got 
into the carriage. 

“T hope this priest isn’t going to be one of those library rats 
who know everything on earth,” thought Caesar, but when he 
heard him make a couple of mistakes in grammar, he became 
tranquil. 


THEODORA AND MAROZIA 


As they passed the Castel Sant’ Angelo, Caesar began to 
tell the story of Theodora and her daughter Marozia, the two 
women who lived there and who, for forty odd years, changed 
the Popes as one changes cooks. 

“You know the history of those women? ” asked Caesar. 

“I don’t,” said the Canon. 

“Nor I,” added Don Calixto. 

“Then I will tell it to you before we get to Saint Peter’s. 
Theodora, an influential lady, fell in love with a young priest 
of Ravenna, and had him elected Pope, by the name of John X. 
Her daughter Marozia, a young girl and a virgin, gave herself 


AT SAINT PETER’S 175 


to Pope Sergius III, a capricious, fantastic man, who had once 
had the witty idea of digging up Pope Formosus and subject- 
ing him, putrefied as he was, to the judgment of a Synod. By 
this eccentric man Marozia had a son, and afterwards was mar- 
ried three times more. She exercised an omnipotent sway over 
the Holy See. John X, her mother’s lover, she deposed and sent 
to die in prison. With his successor, Leo VI, whom she her- 
self had appointed Pope, she did the same. The following 
Pope, Stephen VII, died of illness, twenty months after his 
reign began, and then Marozia gave the Papal crown to the son 
she had had by Sergius III, who took the name of John XI. 
This Pope and his brother Alberic, began to feel their mother’s 
influence rather heavy, and during a popular revolt they de- 
cided to get Marozia into their power, and they seized her and 
buried her alive in the in pace of a convent.” 

“ But is all this authentic?” asked the Canon, completely 
stupefied. 

“ Absolutely authentic.” 

The Canon made a gesture of resignation and looked at Don 
Calixto in astonishment. 

While Caesar was telling the story, the carriage had passed 
down a narrow and rather deserted street, called Borgo Vecchio, 
in whose windows clothes were hanging out to dry, and then 
they came out in the Piazza di San Pietro. They drove around 
one edge of this enormous square. The sky was blue. A 
fountain was throwing water, which changed to a cloud in the 
air and produced a brilliant rainbow. 

“ One certainly wonders,” said Caesar, “if Saint Peter’s is 
not one of the buildings in the worst taste that exist in the 
world.” 

They got out in front of the steps. 

“Your friend is probably well up on archeological matters? ” 
asked Caesar. 

“Who? Don Justo? Not in the least.” 

Caesar began to laugh, went up the steps ahead of the others, 
lifted the leather curtain, and they all three went into Saint 
Peter’s. 


176 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


THERE IS NO PERFORMANCE 


Caesar began his explanations with the plan of the church. 
The Canon passed his hand over all the stones and kept saying: 
“This is marble too,” and adding, “ How expensive! ” 

“Do you like this, Don Calixto? ” Caesar asked. 

“ What a question, man! ” 

“ Well, it is obviously very rich and very sumptuous, but it 
must give a fanatic coming here from far away the same feel- 
ing a person gets when he has a cold and asks for a hot drink 
and is given a glass of iced orgeat.” 

“ Don’t let Don Justo hear you,” said Don Calixto, as if they 
ought to keep the secret about the orgeat between the two of 
them. 

They came to the statue of Saint Peter, and Caesar told them 
it is the custom for strangers to kiss its foot. The Canon 
piously did so, but Don Calixto, who was somewhat uneasy, 
rubbed the statue’s worn foot surreptitiously with his handker- 
chief and then kissed it. 

Caesar abstained from kissing it, because he said the kiss was 
efficacious principally for strangers. 

Then they went along, looking at the tombs of the Popes. 
Caesar was several times mistaken in his explanations, but his 
friends did not notice his mistakes. 

The thing that surprised the Canon most was the tomb of 
Alexander VII, because there is a skeleton on it. Don Calixto 
stopped with most curiosity before the tomb of Paul III, on 
which one sees two nude women. Caesar told them that 
popular legend claims that one of these statues, the one repre- 
senting Justice, is Julia Farnese, sister of Pope Paul III, and 
mistress of Pope Alexander VI; but such a supposition seems 
unlikely. 

“ Entirely,” insisted the Canon gravely; “ those are things in- 
vented by the Free Thinkers.” 

Don Calixto allowed himself to say that most of the Popes 
looked like drum-majors. 

Don Justo continued appraising everything he saw like a 


AT SAINT PETER’S 177 


contractor. Caesar devoted himself to retailing his observa- 
tions to Don Calixto, while the Canon walked alone. 

“J will inform you,” he told him, “that on Saturday one 
may go up in the dome, but only decently dressed people. Soa 
placard on that door informs us. If by any chance an apostle 
should re-arise and have a fancy to do a little gymnastics and 
see Rome from a height, as he would probably be dirty and 
badly dressed, he would get left, they wouldn’t let him go up. 
And then he could say: ‘ Invent a religion like the Christian 
religion, so that after a while they won’t let you go up in the 
dome.’ ” 

“ Yes, certainly, certainly,” replied Don Calixto. ‘“ They are 
absurd. But do not let the Canon hear you. To be sure, all 
this does not look very religious, but it is magnificent.” 

“ Yes, it is a beautiful stage-setting, but there is no perform- 
ance,” said Caesar. 

“What do you mean by that? ” asked Don Calixto. 

“That this is an empty place. It would have been well to 
build a temple as large and light as this in honour of Science, 
which is humanity’s great creation. These statues, instead of 
being stupid or warlike Popes, ought to be the inventor of 
vaccination or of chloroform. ‘Then one could understand the 
chilliness and the fairly menacing air that everything in the 
place wears. Let people have confidence in the truth and in 
work, that is good; but that a religion founded on mysteries, 
on obscurities, should build a bright, challenging, flippant 
temple, is ridiculous.” 

“ Ves, yes,” said Don Calixto, always preoccupied in keeping 
the Canon from hearing, “ you talk like a modern man. I 
myself, down in my heart, you know. . . . I believe you follow 
me, eh?” 

“ Yes, man.” 

“ Well, I think that all this has no transcendency. . . . That 
pete say... 3:37! 

“No, it has none. You may well say so, Don Calixto.” 

“ But it did have it. That cannot be doubted, can it? And 
a great-deal. This is undeniable.” 


178 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


IT IS A MAGNIFICENT BUSINESS CONCERN 


“Tt was really a magnificent business concern,” said Caesar. 
“ Think of monopolizing heaven and hell, selling the shares here 
on earth and paying the dividends in heaven! There’s no 
guarantee trust company or pawn-broker that pays an interest 
like that. And at its height, how many branches it developed! 
Here, in this square, I have a friend, a Jewish dealer in rosaries, 
who tells me his trade is flourishing. In three weeks he has 
sold a hundred and fifty kilos of rosaries blessed by the Pope, 
two hundred kilos of medals, and about half a square kilometre 
of scapulars.” 

“ What an exaggeration! ” said Don Calixto. 

“No, it is the truth. He is glad that these things, which he 
considers accursed, sell, because after all, he is a liberal and 
a Jew; the only thing he does, if he.can, to ease his conscience, 
is to get ten per cent. profit on everything, and he says to him- 
self: ‘Let the Catholics worry! ’” 

“What tales! If the Canon should hear you! ” 

“No, but all this is true. As my friend says: Business is 
business. And he has made me take notice that when the Gari- 
baldini come here, they spend the price of a few bottles of 
Chianti, and then they sleep in any dog-kennel, and spend noth- 
ing more. On the contrary, the rich Catholics buy and buy 

. and off go his kilos of rosaries and of medals, his tons of 
veils for visiting the Pope, his reams of indulgences for eating 
meat, and for eating fish and meat, and even for blowing your 
nose on pages of the Bible if you like.” 

“Do not be so disrespectful.” 

When the Canon had made sure of all the square metres of 
marble there are in Saint Peter’s they went out into the square 
again. Caesar indicated the heap of irregular edifices that form 
the Vatican. 

“That ought to be the Pope’s room,” said Caesar, pointing 
to a window, at random. ‘“ You must have been there, Don 
Calixto? ” 


AT SAINT PETER’S 179 


“JT don’t know. Really,” he said, “I haven’t much idea 
where I was.” 

“Nor has he any idea how he went,” thought Caesar, and 
added: ‘That is the Library; over there is the Secretary of 
State’s apartment; there is where the Holy Office meets’; and 
he said whatsoever occurred to him, perfectly tranquilly. 

They took their carriage, and as they passed a shop for ob- 
jects of religion, Don Calixto said to the Canon: 

“What do you say to this, Don Justo? According to Don 
Caesar, the proprietors of the shops where they sell medals, are 
Jews.” 

“ Bah! that cannot be so,” replied the Canon roundly. 

“ Why not?” 

‘3 Bah! ? 

“Why should it shock you?” exclaimed Caesar. “If they 
sold Jesus Christ alive, why are they not to sell him dead? ” 

“Well, I am glad to know it,” Don Justo burst forth, “ be- 
cause I was going to buy some medals for presents, and now I 
won’t buy them.” 

Don Calixto smiled, and Caesar understood that the good 
Canon was taking advantage of the information to save a penny. 


XXI 
DON CALIXTO IN THE CATACOMBS 


ON CALIXTO and the Canon were very anxious to 
visit the Catacombs. Caesar knew that the visit is not 
entirely agreeable, and attempted to dissuade them 

from their intention. 

“J don’t know whether you gentlemen know that one has to 
spend the entire day there.” 

“ Without lunch? ” asked the Canon. 

“ Yes.” 

“Oh, no; that is impossible.” 

“ One has to sacrifice oneself for the sake of Christianity,” 
said Caesar. 

“You haven’t much desire to sacrifice yourself,” retorted 
Don Calixto. 

“ Because I believe it is damp and unwholesome down there, 
and a Christian bronchitis would not be wholly pleasant, despite 
its religious origin. And besides, as you already know, one 
must go without food.” 

“We might eat something there,” said Don Justo. 

“Eat there! ” exclaimed Caesar. ‘“ Eat a slice of ham, in 
front of the niches of the Catacombs! It would make me sick.” 

“It wouldn’t me,” replied the Canon. 

“In front of the tombs of martyrs and saints! ” 

“ Even if they were saints, they ate too,” replied the Canon, 
with his excellent good sense. 

Caesar had to agree that even if they were saints, they ate. 

There was a French family at the hotel who were also think- 
ing of going to see the Catacombs, and Don Calixto and Don 
Justo decided to go the same day with them. 

180 


IN THE CATACOMBS 181 


The French family consisted of a Breton gentleman, tall and 
whiskered, who had been at sea; his wife, who looked like a 
village woman; and the daughter, a slender, pale, sad young 
lady. They had with them, half governess, half maid, a lean 
peasant-woman with a suspicious air. 

The young lady confessed to Caesar that she had been dream- 
ing of the Catacombs for a long while. She knew the descrip- 
tion Chateaubriand gives of them in Les Martyres by heart. 

The next day the French family in one landau, and Don 
Calixto with the Canon and Caesar in another, went to see the 
Catacombs. 

The French family had brought a fat, smiling abbé as 
cicerone. 

Five persons couldn’t get inside the landau, and the Breton 
gentleman had to sit by the driver. Don Calixto offered him a 
seat in his carriage, but the Breton, who must have been obsti- 
nate as a mule, said no, that from the driver’s seat he enjoyed 
more of the panorama. 

They halted a moment, on the abbé’s advice, at the Baths of 
Caracalla, and went through them. The cicerone explained 
where the different bathing-rooms had been and the size of the 
pools. Those cyclopean buildings, those high, high arches, 
those enormous walls, left Caesar overcome. 

One couldn’t understand a thing like this except in a town 
which had a mania for the gigantic, the titanic. 

They left the baths and started along. They followed the 
Via di Porta San Sebastiano, between two walls. They left 
behind the imposing ruins of the Baths of Caracalla and vari- 
ous establishments for archeological reconstructions, and the 
carriage stopped at the gate of the Catacombs. 

They went in, guided by the abbé, and arrived at a sort of 
office. 

They each paid a lira for a taper which a friar was handing 
out, and they joined a group of other people, without quite 
knowing what they expected next. In the group there were 
two German Dominicans, a tall one whose fiery red beard hung 
to his waist, and a slim one, with a nose like a knife. 


182 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


IRREVERENT CICERONE 


It was not long before another numerous group of tourists 
came out of a hole in the floor, and among them was a Trappist 
brother who came over to where Don Calixto and Caesar were. 
The Trappist carried a stick, and a taper twisted in the end of 
the stick. He asked if everybody understood French; any one 
that didn’t could wait for another group. 

“‘T don’t understand it,” said the Canon. 

“ T will translate what he says, to you,” replied Caesar. 

“ All right,” answered the Canon. 

“ En avant, messieurs,” said the Trappist, lighting his taper, 
and requesting them all to do the same. 

They went around giving one another a light, and with their 
little candles aflame they began to descend into the Catacombs. 

They went in by a gallery as narrow as one in a mine, which 
once in a while broadened into bigger spaces. 

In certain spots there were openings in the roof. 

Caesar had never thought about what the celebrated Cata- 
combs would be like, but he had not expected them so poor and 
so sinister. 

The sensation they caused was disagreeable, a sensation of 
choking, of suffocation, without one’s really getting any im- 
pression of grandeur. The place seemed like an abandoned 
ant-hill. The wide spaces that opened out at the sides of the 
passage were chapels, the monk said. - 

The Trappist cicerone contributed to removing any serious 
feelings with his chatter and his jokes. Being familiar with 
these tombs, he had lost respect for them, as sacristans lose it 
for the saints they brush the dust off of with a feather-duster. 
Moreover, he judged everything by an esthetic criterion, com- 
pletely devoid of respect; for him there were only sepulchres 
with artistic character, or without it; of a good or a poor period; 
and the latter sort he struck contemptuously with his stick. 

The marine. Breton was irritated, and asked Caesar several 
times: 

“ Why is that permitted? ” 


IN THE CATACOMBS 183 


“T don’t know,” answered Caesar. 

The monk made extraordinary remarks. 

Explaining the life of the Christians in the earliest eras of 
Christianity, he said: 

“In this century the habits of the pontiffs were so lax that 
the Pope had to go out accompanied by two persons to insure 
his modest behaviour.” 

“ Oh, oh! ” said a young Frenchman, in a tone of vexation. 

“Ah! C'est Vhistoire,’ replied the monk. 

Caesar translated what the Trappist had said, to Don Ca- 
lixto and the Canon, and they were both really perplexed. 

They followed the long, narrow galleries. It was a strange 
effect, seeing the procession of tourists with their burning can- 
dles. One didn’t notice the modern clothes and the ladies’ hats, 
and from a distance the procession lighted by the little flames 
of the candles, had a mysterious look. 

At the tail of the crowd walked two men who spoke English. 
One was a “gentleman” little versed in archeological ques- 
tions; the other a tall person with the face of a scholar. Caesar 
drew near them to listen. The one was explaining to his com- 
panion everything they saw as they went along, the signification 
of the emblems cut in the tablets, and the funerary customs of 
the Christians. 

“ Didn’t they put crosses?” asked the unlearned gentleman. 

“No,” said the other. “It is said that for the Romans the 
crux represented the gallows! Thus the earliest representa- 
tion of the Crucified is a drawing in the Kirchnerian museum, 
which shows a Christian kneeling before a man with a donkey’s 
head, who is nailed to a cross. In Greek letters one reads: 
‘ Alexamenes adores his God.’ They say this drawing comes 
from the Palace of the Caesars, and it is considered to be a 
caricature of Christ, drawn by a Roman soldier on a wall.” 

“ Didn’t they put up images of Christ, either? ” 

“No. You do not consider that they were- at the height of 
the discussion as to whether Christ was ugly or beautiful.” 

The tall gentleman got involved in a long dissertation as to 
what motives they had had, some to insist that Christ’s person 


184. CAESAR OR NOTHING 


was of great beauty, others to affirm that it was of terrible 
ugliness. 

Caesar would have liked to go on listening to what this gen- 
tleman said, but Don Justo joined him. The Trappist was in 
front of two mummies, explaining something, and he wanted 
Caesar to translate what he was saying. 

Caesar did this bit of interpreting for him. The candles 
were beginning to burn out and it was necessary to leave. 

The cicerone took them rapidly along a gallery at whose end 
there was a stairway, and they issued into the sunlight. The 
monk extinguished the taper on his stick, and began crying: 

“ Now, gentlemen, do you want any scapulars, medals, choco- 
late? ” 

Caesar looked over his companions in the expedition. The 
Canon was indifferent. The old maritime Breton showed signs 
of profound indignation, and his daughter, the little French 
mystic, had tears in her eyes. 

“ That poor little French girl, who arrived here so full of en- 
thusiasm, has come out of these Catacombs like a rat out of a 
sewer,”’ said Caesar. 

“And why so? ” asked Don Calixto. 

“ Because of the things the monk said. He was really scan- 
dalous.” 

“Tt is true,” said the Canon gravely. ‘I never would have 
believed it.” 

“ Roma veduta, fede perduta,” said Don Calixto. “ And as 
for you, Caesar, hasn’t this visit interested you? ” 

“ Yes, I have been interested in trying to keep from catching 
cold.” 


AGRO ROMANO 


The landau that the Breton family was in took the Appian 
Way, and Caesar and Don Calixto’s carriage followed behind it. 

They passed the tomb of Cecilia Metella, and were able to 
look ahead along the old road, on whose sides one sees the 
remains of aqueducts, which at evening-fall have a grandeur 
so imposing. 


IN THE CATACOMBS 185 


Don Calixto and Don Justo were discussing a question of 
home politics. 

On them magnificently indifferent, the broken sepulchres, the 
abandoned arches invaded by grass, the vestiges of a gigantic 
civilization, did not produce the least impression. 

The coachman pointed out Frascati on the slope of a moun- 
tain, Albano, Grotta Ferrata, and Tivoli. 

Caesar felt the grandeur of the landscape; the enormous sad- 
ness of the remnants of aqueducts, which had the colour of 
rusty iron, beneath a sky of pink clouds. 

At dusk they turned back. Caesar felt a weight on his spirits. 
The walls of the Baths of Caracalla looked threatening to him. 
Those great towering thick walls, broken, brick-colour, burned 
by the sun, gave him an impression of the strength of the past. 
There were no trees, no houses near them; as if those imposing 
ruins precluded any life round about. Only one humble al- 
mond-tree held out its white flowers. 

Don Calixto and the Canon continued chatting. 


XXII 
SENTIMENTALITY AND ARCHEOLOGY 


ON CALIXTO and the Canon went away to Spain. 
Caesar thought he was wasting time in Rome and that 


he ought to get out, but he remained. He kept won- 
dering why Susanna Marchmont had left and never written 
him. 

Twice he asked about her at the Hotel Excelsior, and was 
told that she had not returned. 

One evening at the beginning of May, when he had managed 
to decide to pack up and go, he received a card from Susanna, 
telling him of her arrival and inviting him to have tea at the 
Ristorante deb Castello dei Cesari. . 

Caesar immediately left the hotel and took a cab, which car- 
ried him to the top of the Aventine Hill. 

He got out at the entrance to the garden of the Ristorante, 
went across it, and out on a large terrace. 

There were a number of Americans having tea, and in one 
group of them was Susanna. 

“ How late you come!” she said. 

“T have just received your card. And what did you do in 
Corfu? How did things go down there? ” 

“Very well indeed. It is all wonderful. And I have been 
in Epirus and Albania, too.” 

Susanna related her impressions of those countries, with 
many details, which, surely, she had read in Baedeker. 

She was very smart, and prettier than ever. She said her 
husband must be in London; she had had no news from him 
for more than a month. 

186 


SENTIMENTALITY 187 


* And how did you know I was still here? ” Caesar asked her. 

“Through Kennedy. He wrote tome. He is a good friend. 
He talked a lot about you in his letters.” 

Caesar thought he noticed that Susanna talked with more 
enthusiasm than ordinarily. Perhaps distance had produced 
a similar effect on her to what wondering about her had on 
him. Caesar looked at her almost passionately. 

From the terrace one could see the tragic ruins of the Palace 
of the Caesars; broken arcades covered with grass, remains of 
walls still standing, the openings of arches and windows, and 
here and there a pointed cypress or a stone pine among the great 
devastated walls. 

Far away one could see the country, Frascati, and the blue 
mountains of the distance. 

As it was already late, the group of Susanna’s American 
friends decided to return by carriage. 

“ T am going to walk,” said Susanna in a low tone. ‘“ Would 
you like to come with me?” 

“With great pleasure.” 

They took leave of the others, went down the garden road, 
which was decorated on both sides with ancient statues and 
tablets, and issued on the Via di Santa Prisca, a street between 
two dark walls, with a lamp every once in a while. 

“What a sky! ” she exclaimed. 

“It is splendid.” 

It was of a blue with the lustre of mother-of-pearl; in the 
zenith a stray star was imperceptibly shining; to the west floated 
golden and red clouds. 

They went down the steep street, alongside a garden wall. 
In some places, bunches of century plants showed their hard 
spikes, sharp as daggers, over the low walls. 

There was a great silence in this coming of night. Among 
the foliage of the trees they heard the piping of sparrows. 
From far away there came, from time to time, the puffing of a 
train. 


188 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


DESOLATION 


They walked without speaking, mastered by the melancholy 
of their surroundings. Now and again, a peasant, tanned by 
the sun, with his little sack full of grass, came home from the 
fields, singing. 

Caesar and Susanna passed alongside of the Jewish ceme- 
tery, and stopped to look in through a grill. The wall hid the 
burning zone of twilight; a greenish blue reigned in the zenith. 

They went on again. A bell began to ring. 

Caesar was depressed. Susanna was silent. 

They crossed a street of new, dark houses; they passed by a 
little square with a melancholy church. The street they took 
was named for Saint Theodore. To the left, down the Via del 
Velabro, they saw an arch with many niches on the sides of the 
single opening. 

A band of black seminarians passed. 

“ Poor creatures! ” murmured Caesar. 

“ Are you very sympathetic? ” said Susanna, mockingly. 

“Yes, those chaps rouse my pity.” 

Now, on the right, the furious ruins of the Palatine were 
piled up: brick walls, ruined arches, decrepit partitions, and 
above, the terrace of a garden with a balustrade. Over the 
terrace, against the sky, were the silhouettes of high cypresses 
almost black, of ilexes with their dense foliage, and a large palm 
with arching leaves. 

From these so tragic ruins there seemed to exhale a great 
desolation, beneath the deep, green sky. 

Susanna and Caesar drew near the Forum. 

In the opaque light of dusk the Forum had the air of a ceme- 
tery. Two lighted windows were shining in the high dark wall 
of the Tabularium, and sharp-toned bells were beginning to 
ring. 

They went up the stairway that leads to the Capitol, and on 
a little terrace they stopped to look at the Forum. 

“ What terrible desolation! ” exclaimed Susanna. 

“ All the stones look like tombs,” said Caesar. 


SENTIMENTALITY 189 


“ Yes, that is true.” 

“ What are those three high open vaults that give so strange 
an impression of immense size?” asked Caesar. 

“That is what remains of Constantine’s basilica.” 

For a long while they gazed at that abandoned space, with its 
melancholy columns and white stones. 

In a street running into the Forum, there began to shine two 
rows of gaslights of a greenish colour. 

As they passed down the slope leading to the Capitol, in a 
little street to the left, the Via Monte Tarpea, they saw a funeral 
procession ready to start. At that moment the corpse was being 
brought into the street. Several women in black were waiting 
by the house door with lighted candles. 

The priest, in his white surplice and holding up his cross, 
gave the order to start, and pushed to the front of the crowd; 
four men raised the bier and took it on their shoulders, and the 
procession of women in black, men, and children, followed be- 
hind. Bells with sharp voices began again to sound in the air. 

“Oh, isn’t it sad!” said Susanna, lifting her hand to her 
breast. 

They watched how the procession moved away, and then 
Caesar murmured, ill-humouredly: 

“Tt is-stupid.” 

“ What?” asked Susanna. 

“IT say that it’s stupid to take pleasure in feeling miserable. 
What we are doing is absurd and unhealthy.” 

Susanna burst into laughter, and when she said good-night 
to Caesar she squeezed his hand energetically. 


XXIIT 
THE ’SCUTCHEON OF A CHURCH 


friend Alzugaray, “is a beautiful woman, rich, and 

apparently intelligent. She has given me to under- 
stand that she feels a certain inclination for me, and if I please 
her well enough, she will get a divorce and marry me. 

“I have discovered the reasons for her inclination, first in a 
desire to revenge herself on her husband by marrying the 
brother of the woman he has fallen in love with; secondly, in 
my not having made love to her, like the majority of the men 
she has known. 

“ Really, Susanna is a beautiful woman; but whereas other 
women gain by being looked at and listened to, with her it is 
not so. In this beautiful woman there is something cold, utili- 
tarian, which she does not succeed in hiding by her artistic 
effusions. Besides she has a great deal of vanity, but stupid 
vanity. She has asked me if I couldn’t manage to acquire a 
high-sounding, decorative title in Spain. 

“Tf Susanna knew that in my heart I keep up her friendship 
only through inertia, because I have no plans, and that her 
millions and her beauty leave me cold, she would be dum- 
founded; I believe that perhaps she would admire me. 

“‘ At present we devote ourselves to walking, talking, and tell- 
ing each other our impressions. Any one would say that we 
intentionally play a game of being contrary; whatsoever she 
finds wonderful seems worthy of contempt to me, and vice-versa. 
It is strange that such absolute disagreement can exist. 


S USANNA MARCHMONT,” Caesar wrote to his 


190 


"SCUTCHEON OF A CHURCH 191 


“This Sunday afternoon we have been taking a long walk, 
half sentimental, half archeological. 

“T went to get her at her hotel; she came down, looking 
very smart, with an unmarried friend, also an American and 
also very chic. 

“The three of us walked toward the Forum. We passed 
under the arch of Constantine. A small beggar-boy preceded 
us, getting ahead and turning hand-springs. I gave him some 
pennies. Susanna laughed. This woman, who pays bills of 
thousands of pesetas to her milliner, doesn’t like to give a cop- 
per to a ragamuffin. 

“We turned off a bit from the avenue and went up on the 
right, toward the Palatine. Among the ruins some women were 
pulling up plants and putting them into sacks. At the end of 
the road, on the slope, there were Stations of the Cross, and 
some boys. from a school were playing, guarded by priests with 
white rabats. 

“It was impossible to go further, and we went down the hill 
toward the Piazza di San Gregorio. On the open place in front 
of the church that is in this square, some vagabonds were 
stretched out on the ground; an old man with a long hoary 
beard and a pipe with a chain, two dark youths with shocks 
of black hair, and a red-headed woman with silver hoops in her 
ears and a baby in her arms. 

“ The two young boys threw me a glance of hatred, and stared 
at Susanna and her friend with extraordinary avidity. 

“What very false ideas must have been going through their 
minds! I might have approached them and said politely: 

“* Do not imagine that these ladies are of different stuff from 
this red woman who has the baby in her arms. They are all 
the same. There is no more difference than what is caused by 
a little soap and some money.’ 

“* Let us go in and see the church,’ said Susanna. 

“* Good. Come along.’ 

“ The church has a flight of stone steps and two cypresses to 
one side. : 

“We went into a court with graves in it, and stayed there a 


192 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


while, reading the names of the people buried in them. Susan- 
na’s friend is a sort of little devil with the instincts of a small 
boy, and she went springing about in all the corners. 

“ When we came out of the church we found the square, de- 
serted before, now full of people. During the time we had 
stayed inside, a numerous group of tourists had formed a circle, 
and a gentleman was explaining in English what the Via Appia 
used to be. 

“* These are the things that please you,’ Susanna said to me, 
laughing. 

“T answered with a joke. The truth is that no matter how 
many explanations I am given, an ancient Roman always seems 
a cardboard figure to me, or at most a marble figure. It is not 
possible to imagine how bored I used to be reading Les Martyres 
of Chateaubriand and that famous Quo Vadis. 

“ From the Piazza di San Gregorio we took a steep street, the 
‘Via di Santi Giovanni e Paolo,’ which passes under an arch 
with several brick buttresses. 

“We came out in a little square, in an angle of which there 
is an ancient arcaded tower, which has tiles set into the walls, 
some round and others the shape of a Greek cross. 

“The modern portico of the church has columns and a grated 
door, which we found open. Over the door is a picture of Saint 
John and Saint Paul; on the sides of it two shields with the 
mitre and the keys. On one, set round about, are the Latir. 
words: Omnium rerum est vicisitudo; on the other is written in 
Spanish: Mi corazén arde en mucha llama. 

“*Ts it Spanish?’ Susanna asked me. 

ace Yes.’ 

“* What does it mean?’ 

“T translated the phrase into English: ‘ My heart burns with 
a great flame’; and Susanna repeated it several times, and 
begged me to write it in her card-case. 

“Her friend skimmed some pages in Baedeker and said: 

“Tt seems that the house of two saints martyred by Julian 
the Apostate is preserved here.’ 

“T assured them that that was an error. I happen to have 


*"SCUTCHEON OF A CHURCH _ 193 


been reading just a few days ago a book about Julian the 
Apostate, and it turns out that that Emperor was an admirable 
man, good, generous, brave, full of virtues; but the Christians 
had reason for calumniating him and they calumniated him. 
All Julian’s persecutions of Christians are logical repressions 
of people that were disturbing public order, and the phrase, 
Vencisti, Galileo, is a pious fraud. Julian was a philosopher, 
he loved science, hygiene, cleanliness, peace, in a world of 
hysterical worshippers of corpses, who wanted to live in igno- 
rance, filth, and prayer. 

“ But Christianity, always a religion of hallucinated persons, 
of mystifiers, has never vacillated in singing the praises of 
parricides like Constantine, and in calumniating the memory of 
great men like Julian. 

“Susanna and her friend considered that the question of 
whether Julian has been calumniated by history, or not, was of 
no importance. 

“The truth is that I feel the same way. 

“From the Via di Santi Giovanni e Paolo we came out into 
a small square by a church, which has a little marble ship in 
front of its porch. We saw that his street is named after the 
Navicella. 


A ROYAL IDYLL 


“ By the side of the church of the Navicella, we passed the 
Villa Mattei, and Susanna wished to go in. What a beautiful 
property! What splendid terraces those in that garden are! 
What laurels! What lemon-trees! What old statues! What 
heavy shade of pines and live-oaks! 

“ Kennedy, who has an admirable knowledge of every corner 
of Rome, has told me that at the beginning of the XIX Century 
the Villa Mattei was the property of Godoy. King Charles IV 
and his wife were in Rome, living in the Barberini Palace, and 
they spent their days in the seclusion of the Villa Mattei; and 
while the favourite and the Queen, who had now become a harpy, 
walked in those poetical avenues, bordered with box and laurel, 
the good Bourbon, now an old man, walked behind them, his 


194 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


forehead ornamented like a faun’s, enchanted to watch them; I 
don’t know whether he was playing the flute. 

“ Susanna’s friend laughed at the thought of the good Charles 
IV, with his waistcoat and his long coat, and his satyr’s 
excrescences, and his rural flute; but the allusion did not find 
favour with Susanna, whether because she thought of her hus- 
band’s infidelities, or because she considered, that if her father 
gets to be the shoe-king, she will then have a certain spiritual 
relationship to the Bourbons. In the Villa Mattei we saw an 
ediculo, which rises at the edge of a terrace, amidst climbing 
plants. There, as an inscription says, Saint Philip Neri talked 
to his disciples of things divine. From the terrace one can 
see the Baths of Caracalla, and part of the Roman Campagna 
behind them. 

“We came out of the Villa Mattei and left the Piazza della 
Navicella and came down through a place where there is a wall 
with arches, under which some beggars have built huts out of 
gasoline cans. There is an eating-place thereabouts called the 
Osteria di Porta Metronia. 

“Susanna’s friend consulted her book, and the result was 
that we found we were in the Vale of Egeria. 

“From there we came out by a narrow road running along 
a wall, not a very high one, over which green laurel branches 
projected. We saw an obelisk at the end of the road, and the 
entablature of Saint John the Lateran. The group of statues, 
reddish brown, silhouetted against the sky, made a very strange 
effect. 

“We started to go down by the Via di San Sisto Vecchio, 
which also runs along by a wall. At the bottom of the slope 
there is a mill, with a deep race. Susanna’s friend said she 
would enjoy bathing there. 

“We came out, at nightfall, almost opposite the Baths of 
Caracalla. 

“They ought to knock these ruins down altogether,’ I said. 

“* Why so?’ asked Susanna. 

“* Because they appear to be standing here to demonstrate 
the uselessness of human energy.’ 


"SCUTCHEON OF A CHURCH 195 


“Susanna was very little interested as to whether human 
energy is useful or useless. 

“T am, because my own energy forms a part of human energy, 
and for no other reason. 

“We came back past the Forum, but today we did not come 
upon any funerals. To demand that somebody should die every 
day and his corpse be carried out at twilight to feed tourists’ 
emotions, would, I think, be demanding too much. 

“When we reached her hotel, Susanna let her friend go up 
first; and as soon as we were alone, she looked at me expres- 
sively, placing one hand on her breast, and said to me, in nasal 
Spanish: 

“* Mi corazén arde en mucha lama.’ 

“I don’t believe it.” 


XXIV 
TOURIST INTERLUDE 


TRAVELLING 


66 USANNA said to me: ‘I have some inclination for 
you, but I don’t know you well enough. If you feel 
the same way, come with me. Let us travel to- 

gether.’ I am with her, and nevertheless I am convinced that 

what I am doing is a piece of stupidity. 

“We spent this Sunday morning in the train. In the coun- 
try we saw men at work with great oxen that had long twisted 
horns. In a swampy field some labourers were draining the 
ground with great effort. From the train we saw the island of 
Elba, and Capraia, and the sea as blue as indigo. 

“* Mare nostro,’ said an elegant gentleman in a fluty voice, 
and pointed out something on the horizon which he said was 
Corsica, and he said that it can be seen from far away. 

“While all we useless, unoccupied persons gathered in the 
dining-car, the people in the fields kept on working, bent over 
in the mud, draining the marshes. 

“* What a lot of effort those poor devils have to make to keep 
us alive,’ I said. 

“* We are not kept alive by them,’ retorted Susanna. 

“* No, we live off of other slaves, who work for us,’ I an- 
swered her. ‘Those out there serve to feed the officers, the 
effeminate priestlings, all the people that take part in the the- 
atrical performance of the Vatican. Those unfortunates help 
to uphold the eight basilicas and the three hundred odd churches 
of Rome.’ 

“ Susanna shrugged her shoulders and smiled. 

196 


TOURIST INTERLUDE 197 


CLOSE TO 


“ Travelling with a woman one does not love, no matter how 
very pretty she is, produces a series of disenchantments. It 
seems as if one kept seeking defects and analysing them under 
the microscope. During these days that I have been accom- 
panying Susanna, I have discovered a lot of physical and moral 
imperfections in her. There are moments in which she cannot 
conceal an egoism and brutality which are truly disagreeable; 
and besides, she is tyrannical, vain, and tries always to have 
her own way. 

“We have been at Siena, which is a kind of Toledo, made up 
of narrow lanes. It was very hot. We were bored, especially 
she who has no artistic feeling. 

“We have spent two days in Florence, a night in Bologna, 
another night at Milan, and after vacillating as to whether it 
would be better to go to Lake Como or to Switzerland, we have 
come to Geneva to spend a few days. 

“ Travelling like this in limited trains, one finds travelling 
more insipid than in any other fashion. All the sleeping-cars 
are alike, all the people alike, all the hotels alike. Really it is 
stupid. 

“Tt is still more stupid travelling with a woman who attracts 
attention wherever she goes. She attracts attention, that is all; 
she doesn’t awaken any liking. She cannot comprehend why, 
being a beautiful and distinguished woman, she has nobody 
who cares for her disinterestedly. She notices that all the smart 
young men who aim for her are simply coming to the beautiful 
rich woman. 

“ And she thinks they ought to be in ecstasies over her wit 
and over the repertory of ready-made phrases she keeps for 
conversation. 


A TIRESOME HOTEL 


“In this immense, luxurious hotel, situated two thousand 
odd metres above sea-level, as the announcement-cards stuck 
everywhere say, more than a hundred of us gather in the dining- 


198 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


room at lunch-time. The greatest coolness, the most frozen 
composure reigns among us. 

“Tt is obvious that, thus harboured and united by chance 
in this hotel, we disturb one another; a wall of prejudices and 
conventionalities separates us. The English old maids read 
their romantic novels; the German families talk among them- 
selves; some Russian or other drinks champagne while he stares 
with vague and inexpressive eyes; and some swarthy man from 
a sultry country appears to be crushed by the lugubrious silence. 

“Through the windows one can see Lake Leman, closed in 
near here by mountains, blue like a great turquoise, ploughed by 
white, triangular sails. From time to time one hears the stri- — 
dent noise of a steamboat’s siren and the murmur of the funicu- 
lar train. 


A MODEST FAMILY 


“To this ostentatious hotel a family of modest air came two 
days ago. It was a family made up of five persons; two 
ladies, one of them plain, thin, spectacled, the other plumper 
and short; a merry girl, smiling and rosy, and a melancholy 
little girl, with a waxen face. They were accompanied by a 
man with a distinguished, weary manner. 

“They are all in mourning. They are English; they treat 
one another with an attractive affability. The short lady, 
mother of the two girls, was pressing the man’s hand and 
caressing it, during lunch the first day. He kept smiling in a 
gentle, tired way. No doubt he was unable to stay here long, 
for he did not appear that evening, and the four females were 
alone in the dining-room. 

“The two ladies and the fresh, blooming girl are much pre- 
occupied about the pale little girl, so much so that they do not 
notice the interest they arouse among the guests. All the old 
‘misses,’ loaded with jewels, watch the family in mourning, as 
if they were wondering: ‘ How come they here, if their posi- 
tion is not so good as ours? How dare they mix among us, not 
being in our class?’ 

“And it is a fact; they cannot be; there iz something that 


TOURIST INTERLUDE 199 


shows that this family is not rich. Besides, and this is extraor- 
dinary enough, it seems that they haven’t come here to look 
down on others, or to give themselves airs, but to take walks 
and to look at the immaculate peaks of Mont Blanc. So one 
sees the two girls going out into the country without making an 
elaborate toilet, carrying a book or an orange in their hands, 
and coming back with bunches of flowers. . . 


TRAGEDY IN A HOTEL ROOM 


“This morning at lunch only one of the ladies appeared in 
the dining-room. 

“* Perhaps the others have gone off on some picnic,’ thought I. 

“In the evening at dinner, the tall woman with the glasses 
and the larger of the two girls were at table. They didn’t eat, 
and disquietude was painted on their faces; the girl had flushed 
cheeks and swollen eyes. 

“*¢ What can be happening to them?’ I asked myself. 

“ At that juncture, in came the short lady, with two vials of 
medicine in her hand, and put them on the table. By what I 
could hear of the conversation, she had just come from Lau- 
sanne, where she had gone for the doctor. The melancholy 
little girl, the one with the waxen face, must be ill. 

“No doubt the family have come to Switzerland for the 
sake of the child, who is probably delicate, and have made a 
sacrifice to do so. That explains their modest air, and the 
rapid departure of the man who brought them. 

“The three women gazed sadly at one another. What can 
the poor child have? I remember nothing about her, except 
her hair parted in the middle, and the pallid colour of her 
bloodless skin, and nevertheless it makes me sad to think that 
she is sick. 

“‘T should like to offer myself to these women at this crisis; 
I should like to say to them: ‘Iam a humble person, without 
money; but if I could be useful to you in any way, I would do 
it with all my heart; and that is more than I would do for this 
gang covered with brilliants.’ 


200 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“The German who eats at the next table to the family un- 
derstands what is happening, and he leaves off eating to look 
at them, and then looks at me with his blue eyes. At last he 
shrugs his shoulders, lowers his head, and empties a glass of 
wine at one gulp. 

“The three women rise and go to their rooms. One hears 
them coming and going in the corridor; then a waiter takes 
their dinner upstairs. 

“And while the family are desolate up there, down here in 
the ‘hall’ the ‘misses’ keep on looking at one another con- 
temptuously, exhibiting rings that sparkle on their fingers, and 
which would keep hundreds of people alive; and while they are 
weeping upstairs, down here a blond Yankee woman, with a 
large blue hat, a friend of Susanna’s, who flirts with a youth 
from Chicago, is laughing heartily, showing a set of white teeth 
in which there shines a chip of gold. 


SUSANNA DOES NOT UNDERSTAND 


“ T have spoken to Susanna about the poor English girl, who, 
they say, is dying; and she has bidden me not to tell her sad 
things. She cannot bear other people’s suffering. She says she 
is more sensitive than others. How very comical! 

“ This fine lady, who thinks herself so witty and so scnaltive, 
has an inner skin like a hippopotamus; she is covered with a 
magnificent egoism, which must be at least of galvanized steel. 
Her armour protects her against the action of other people’s 
miseries and pains. 

“This woman, so beautiful, is of a grotesque egotism; one 
understands her husband’s despising her. 

“I am leaving her with her millions and going away to 
Spain.” 


PART TWO 


CASTRO DURO 





I 
ARRIVAL 


CAESAR IN ACTION 


URING the night Caesar Moncada and Alzugaray 
chatted in the train. Alzugaray was praising this 
first Quixotic sally of his friend’s. . 

“We are going to cross the Rubicon, Caesar,” he said, as 
he got into the train. 

“We shall see.” 

Many times Alzugaray had heard Caesar explain his plans, 
but he had no great confidence in their realization. Nor did 
this particular moment seem to him opportune for beginning 
the campaign. Everybody believed that the Liberal Ministry 
was stronger than ever; people were still away for the summer; 
nothing was doing. 

Nevertheless, Caesar insisted that the crisis was imminent, 
and that it was the precise moment for him to enter politics. 
With this object he was taking a letter from Alarcos, the leader 
of the Conservatives, to Don Calixto Garcia Guerrero. 

“Your Don Calixto will be at San Sebastian or at some 
water-cure,” said Alzugaray, taking his seat in the train. 

“It’s all the same to me. I intend to follow him until I 
find him,” answered Caesar. 

“ And you are decided to run as a Conservative? ” 

“ Of course.” 

“‘T hope you won’t be sorry later.” 

“Pshaw! Later one jumps into the position that suits one. 
On these first rungs of political life, either you have to have 
great luck, or you have to go like a grasshopper, first here, then 
there. That is the take-off, and when you are there all the 

203 


204 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


ambitious mediocrities unite against you if you have any talent. 
Naturally, I do not intend to do anything to exhibit mine. 
Spanish politics are like a pond; a strong, healthy stick of wood 
goes to the bottom; a piece of bark or cork or a sheaf of straw 
stays on the surface. One has to disguise oneself as a cork.” 

“ And later you will go on and make yourself known.” 

“Naturally. Since I find myself in the vein for making 
comparisons, I will say that in Spanish politics we have a case 
like those in the old comedies of intrigue, where the lackeys pre- 
tend to be gentlemen. When I am once among the gentlemen, 
I shall know how to prove that I am more a master than the 
people surrounding me.” 

“* How conceited you are.” 

“ The confidence one feels in oneself,”’ said Caesar ironically. 

“ But have you really got it, or do you only pretend to have? ” 

“What matter whether I have it or haven’t it, if I behave as if 
I had it?” 

“Tt matters a lot. It matters whether you are calm or not 
in the moment of danger.” 

“ Calmness is the muse that inspires me. I haven’t it in my 
thoughts, but in active life you shall see me! ” 

The two friends stretched themselves out in their first-class 
compartment, and lay half asleep until dawn, when they got 
up again. 

The train was running rapidly across the flat country; the 
yellow sunlight shone into the car; through the newly sowed 
fields rode men on horseback. 

“These are not my dominions yet,” said Caesar. 

“We have two more stations till Castro Duro,” responded 
Alzugaray, consulting the time-table. They took off their caps, 
put them into the bag, Caesar put on a fresh collar, and they 
sat down by the window. 

“It is ugly enough, eh? ” said Alzugaray. 

“ Naturally,” replied Caesar. ‘What do you want; that 
there should be some of those green landscapes like in your 
country, which for my part irritate me? ” 


ARRIVAL 205 


THE CLASSIC STAGECOACH 


They arrived at Castro Duro. In the station they saw groups 
of peasants. The travellers with their baggage went out of the 
station. There were two shabby coaches at the door. 

“ Are you going to the Comercio? ” asked one driver. 

“No, they are going to the Espafia,” said the other. 

“Then you two know more than we do,” answered Alzugaray, 
“because we don’t know where to 30.” 

“To the Comercio! ” 

“To the Espafia! ” 

“ Whose coach is this one?” asked Caesar, pointing to the 
less dirty of the two. 

“The Comercio’s.” 

“All right, then we are going to the Comercio.” 

The coach, in spite of being the better of the two, was a 
rickety, worn-out old omnibus, with its windows broken and 
spotted. It was drawn by three skinny mules, full of galls. 
Caesar and Alzugaray got in and waited. The coachman, with 
the whip around his neck, and a voung man who looked a bit 
like a seminarian, began to chat and smoke. 

At the end of five minutes’ waiting, Caesar asked: 

“Well, aren’t we going? ” 

“In a moment, sir.” 

The moment stretched itself out a good deal. A priest ar- 
rived, so fat that he would have filled the vehicle all alone; then 
a woman from the town with a basket, which she held on her 
knees; then the postman got in with his bag; the driver closed 
the little window in the coach door, and continued joking with 
the young man who looked a bit like a seminarian and with 
one of the station men. 

“We are in a hurry,” said Alzugaray. 

“We are going now, sir. All right. Good-bye! ” 

“‘ Good-bye! ” answered the station man and the seminarian. 

The driver got up on his seat, cracked his whip, and the 
vehicle began to move, with a noisy swaying and a trembling 


206 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


of all its wood and glass. A very thick cloud of dust arose in 
the road. 

“Ya, ya, Coronela! ” yelled the driver. ‘“ Why do you keep 
getting where you oughtn’t to get? Damn the mule! Monte- 
sina, I am going to give you a couple of whacks. Get on there, 
Coronela! Get up, get up... . All right! All right!... 
That’s enough. . . . That’s enough. . . . Let it alone, now! 
Let it alone, now! ” 

“ What an amount of oratory that man is wasting,” exclaimed 
Caesar; “he must think that the mules are going to go better 
for the efforts of his throat. It would be an advantage if he 
had stronger beasts, instead of these dying ones.” 

The other travellers paid no attention to his observation, and 
Alzugaray said: 

“These drivers drip oratory.” 

While the shabby coach was going along the highway which 
encircles Castro hill, to the sound of the bells and the cracking 
of the whip, it was possible to remain seated in the vehicle with 
comparative ease; but on reaching the town’s first steep, crooked, 
rough-cobbled street, the swinging and tossing were such that 
the travellers kept falling one upon another. 

The first street kept getting rapidly narrower, and as it grew 
narrower, the crags in its paving were sharper and more promi- 
nent. At the highest part of the street, in the middle, stood a 
two-wheeled cart blocking the way. The coachman got down 
from his seat and started a long discussion with the carter, as 
to who was under obligations to make way. 

“What idiots! ” exclaimed Caesar, irritated; then, calmer, 
he murmured, addressing Alzugaray, “The truth is, these 
people don’t care about doing anything but talk.” 

As the discussion between the coachman and the carter gave 
signs of never ending, Caesar said: 

“Come along,” and then, addressing the man with the bag, 
he asked him, “ Is it far from here to the inn? ” 

“ No; it is right here, in the house where the café is.” 


ARRIVAL 207 


THE INN 


- Sure enough, the inn was only a step away. They went into 
the damp, dark entrance, up the crooked stairs, and down the 
corridor to the kitchen. 

“ Good morning, good morning! ” they shouted. 

Nobody appeared. 

“ Might it be on the second floor? ” asked Alzugaray. 

“ Let’s go see.” 

They went up to the next floor, entered by a gallery of red 
brick, which was falling to pieces, and called several times. 
An old woman, from inside a dark bedroom where she was 
sweeping, bade them go down to the dining-room, where she 
would bring them breakfast. 

The dining-room had balconies toward the country, and was 
full of sun; the bedrooms they were taken to, on the other hand, 
were dark, gloomy, and cavernous. Alzugaray requested the 
old woman to show them the other vacant chambers, and chose 
two on the second floor, which were lighter and airier. 

The old woman told them she hadn’t wanted to take them 
there, because there was no paper on the walls. 

“No doubt, in Castro, the prospect of bed-bugs is an agree- 
able prospect,” said Caesar. 

After he had washed and dressed, Caesar started out to find 
and capture Don Calixto, and Alzugaray went to take a stroll 
around the town. It was agreed that they should each explore 
the region in his own way. 


II 
CASTRO DURO 


THE MORNING 


N these severe old Castilian towns there is one hour of 
ideal peace and serenity. That is the early morning. 
The cocks are still crowing, the sound of the church bells 

is scattered on the air, and the sun begins to penetrate into the 
streets in gusts of light. The morning is a flood of charity that 
falls upon the yellowish town. 

The sky is blue, the air limpid, pure, and diaphanous; the 
transparent atmosphere scarcely admits effects of perspective, 
and its ethereal mass makes the outlines of the houses, of the 
belfries, of the eaves, vibrate. The cold breeze plays at the 
cross-streets, and amuses itself by twisting the stems of the 
geraniums and pinks that flame on the balconies. Everywhere 
there is an odour of cistus and of burning broom, which comes 
from the ovens where the bread is baked, and an odour of 
lavender that comes from the house entries. 

The town yawns and awakes; some priests pass, on their way 
to church; pious women come out of their houses; and market 
men and women begin to arrive from the villages nearby. The 
bells make that tilin-talén so sad, which seems confined to these 
dead towns. In the main street the shops open; a boy hangs 
up the dresses, the sandals, the caps, on the facade, reaching 
them up with a stick. Droves of mules are seen in front of 
the grain-shops; some charcoal-burners go by, selling charcoal; 
and peasant women lead, by their halters, little burros loaded 
with jars and pans. 

One hears all the hawksters’ cries, all the clatter character- 
istic of that town. The milk-vendor, the honey-vendor, the 

208 


CASTRO DURO 209 


chestnut-vendor, each has his own traditional theme. The can- 
dlestick-maker produces a sonorous peal from two copper can- 
dlesticks, the scissors-grinder whistles on his flute... . 
Then, at midday, hawksters and peasants disappear, the sun 
shines hotter, and the afternoon is tiresome and enervating. 


FROM THE MIRADERO 


Castro Duro is situated on a hill of red earth. 

One goes up to the town by a dusty highway, with the remains 
of little trees which one Europeanizing mayor planted, and 
which all died; or else by zigzag paths, up which saddle-animals 
and beasts of burden usually go. 

From the plain Castro Duro stands out in silhouette against 
the sky, between two high, many-sided edifices, one of a honey 
yellow, old and respectable, the church; the other white, over- 
grown, modern, the prison. 

These two pillars of society are conspicuous from all sides, 
from whatsoever point on the plain one looks at Castro Duro. 

The town was an old important city, and has, from afar, a 
seigniorial air; from nearby, on the contrary, it presents that 
aspect of caked dust which all the Castilian cities in ruin have; 
it is wide, spread out, formed for the most part of lanes and 
little squares, with low crooked houses that have blackish, 
warped roofs. 

From the promenade beside the church, which is called the 
Miradero, one can see the great valley that surrounds Castro, 
a plain without an end, flat and empty. At the foot of the 
hill that supports the city, a broad river, which formerly kissed 
the old walls, marks a huge S with a sand border. 

The water of the river covers the beach in winter, and leaves 
it half uncovered in summer. At intervals on the river banks 
grow little groves of poplar, which are mirrored on the tranquil 
surface of the water. A very long bridge of more than twenty 
arches crosses from one shore to the other. 

The hill that serves as pedestal for the historic city has very 
different aspects; from one side it is seen terraced into steps, 


210 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


formed of small parcels of land held up by rough stone walls. 
On these landings there are thickets of vines and a few almond- 
trees, which grow even out of the spaces between the stones. 

On another part of the hill, called the Trenches, the whole 
ground is broken by great cuttings, which in other days were no 
doubt used for the defence of the city. Near the trenches are 
to be seen the remains of battlemented walls, tiles, and ruins of 
an ancient settlement, perhaps destroyed by the waters of the 
river which in time undermined its foundations. 

From the Miradero one sees the bridge below, as from a bal- 
loon, with men, riding horses, and carts going over it, all di- 
minished by the distance. Women are washing clothes and 
spreading them in the sun, and in the evening horses and herds | 
of goats are drinking at the river brink. 

The great plain, the immense flat land, contains cultivated 
fields, square, oblong, varying in colour with the seasons, from 
the light green of barley to the gold of wheat and the dirty yel- 
low of stubble. Near the river are truck-gardens and orchards 
of almonds and other fruit trees. 

In the afternoon, looking from the Miradero, from the height 
where Castro stands, one feels overcome by this sea of earth, by 
the vast horizon, and the profound silence. The cocks toss 
their metallic crowing into the air; the clock-bells mark the 
hours with a sad, slow clang; and at evening the river, brilliant 
in its two or three fiery curves, grows pale and turns to blue. 
On clear days the sunset has extraordinary magic. The entire 
town floats in a sea of gold. The Collegiate church changes 
from yellow to lemon colour, and at times to orange; and there 
are old walls which take on, in the evening light, the colour of 
bread well browned in the oven. And the sun disappears into 
the plain, and the Angelus bell sounds through the immense 
space. 


THE TOWN 


Castro Duro has a great many streets, as many as an im- 
portant capital. By only circling the Square one can count 
the Main Street, Laurel Street, Christ Street, Merchants’ Street, 


CASTRO DURO 211 


Forge Street, Shoemakers’ Street, Loafing Street, Penitence Wall, 
and Chain Street. 

These streets are built with large brick houses and small 
adobe houses. Pointed cobbles form the pavement, and leave 
a dirty open sewer in the middle. 

The large houses have two granite columns on their facades, 
on either side of the door, and these columns as well as the 
stones of the threshold take on a violet tinge from the lees of 
wine the inhabitants have the custom of putting on the side- 
walks to dry. 

Many of the big houses in Castro boast a large ’scutcheon 
over the door, little crazy towers with iron weather-cocks on the 
roof; and some of them a huge stork’s nest. 

The streets remote from the centre of town have no paving, 
and their houses are low, built of adobe, and continued by 
yards, over whose mud-walls appear the branches of fig-trees. 

These houses lean forward or backward, and they have worn- 
out balconies, staircases which hold up through some prodigy 
of stability, and old grills, crowned with a cross and embellished 
with big flowers of wrought iron. 

The two principal monuments of Castro Duro are the Great 
Church and the palace. 

The Great Church is Romanesque, of a colour between yellow 
and brown, gilded by the sun. It stands high, at one extremity 
of the hill, like a sentinel watching the valley. The solid old 
fabric has rows of crenels under the roof, which shows its war- 
like character. 

The principal dome and the smaller ones are ribbed, like al- 
most all the Romanesque churches of Spain. 

The round apse exhibits ornamental half columns, divers 
rosettes, and a number of raised figures, and masonic symbols. 
In the interior of the church the most notable thing to be seen 
is the Renaissance altar-piece and a Romanesque arch that gives 
entrance to the baptistery. 

The second archeological monument of the town is the an- 
cient palace of the Dukes of Castro Duro. 

The palace, a great structure of stone and now blackened 


212 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


brick, rises at the side of the town-hall, and has, like it, an 
arcade on the Square. In the central balcony there are monu- 
mental columns, and on top of them two giants of corroded 
stone, with large clubs, who appear to guard the ’scutcheon; one 
end of the building is made longer by a square tower. 

The palace wears the noble air given to old edifices by the 
large spread of wall containing windows very far apart, very 
small, and very much ornamented. 

From the inscriptions on its various ’scutcheons one can 
gather that it was erected by the Duke of Castro Duro and his 
wife, Donia Guiomar. 

In the rear of the palace, like a high belvedere built on the 
rampart, there appears a gallery formed of ten round arches, 
supported on slender pilasters. Below the gallery are the re- 
mains of a garden, with ramps and terraces and a few old 
statues. The river comes almost to the foot of the gardens. 

Today the palace belongs to Don Calixto Garcia Guerrero, 
Count de la Sauceda. 

Don Calixto and his family have no necessity for the whole 
of this big palace to live in, and have been content to renovate 
the part fronting on the Calle Mayor. They have had new 
belvederes built in, and have given over the apartments looking 
on the Square and the Calle del Cristo to the Courts and the 
school. 

Another great building, which astonishes every one that stops 
over at Castro Duro, by its size, is the Convent of la Merced. 
It has been half destroyed by a fire. In the groins there remain 
some large Renaissance brackets, and in one wing of the edifice, 
inhabited by the nuns, there are windows with jalousies and a 
rather lofty tower terminating in a weather-cock and a cross. 


LIFE AT CASTRO 


Castro Duro is principally a town of farmers and carriers. 
Its municipal limits are very extensive; the plain surrounding 
it is fertile enough. In winter there are many foggy days, and 
then the flat land looks like a sea, in which hillocks and groves 
float like islands. 


CASTRO DURO 213 


Wine and cultivated fruits constitute the principal riches of 
Castro. The wine is sharp, badly made; there is one thick 
dark variety which always tastes of tar, and one light variety 
which they reinforce with alcohol and which they call aloque. 

Autumn is the period of greatest animation in the town; the 
harvest gets stowed away, the vintage made, the sweet almonds 
are gathered and shelled in the porticoes. 

Formerly in all the houses of rich and poor, the murk of the 
grapes was boiled in a still and a somewhat bitter brandy thus 
manufactured. Whether in consequence of the brandy, or of 
the unusual amount of money about, or of both, the fact is that 
at that period a great passion for gambling developed in Castro 
and more crimes were committed then than during all the rest 
of the year. 

The industrial processes in Castro are primitive; everything is 
made by hand, and the Castrian people imagine that this estab- 
lishes a superiority. In the environs of the town there are an 
electrical plant, a brickyard, various mills, and lime and plas- 
ter kilns. 

The town’s commerce is more extended than its industries, 
although no more prosperous. In the Square and in the Calle 
Mayor, under the arcades white goods are sold and woollens, 
and there are hat-shops and silversmiths, one alongside the 
other. The shopkeepers hang their merchandise in the arches, 
the saddlers and harness-makers decorate their entrances with 
head-stalls and straps, and those that have no archway put up 
awnings. In the Square there are continually stalls set up for 
earthenware jars and pitchers and for articles in tin. 

In the outlying streets there are inns, at whose doors five or 
six mules with their heads together are almost constantly to be 
seen; there are crockery stores containing brooms and every kind 
of jug and glazed pan; there are little shops in doorways holding 
big baskets full of grain; there are dark taverns, which are also 
eating-houses, to which the peasants go to eat on market days, 
and whose signs are strings of dried pimentoes and cayenne 
peppers or an elm branch. In the written signs there is a truly 
Castilian charm, chaste and serene. At the Riojano oven one 


214 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


reads: “‘ Bred’ baked for all ‘commers.’” And at the Cam- 
pico inn it says: “‘ Wine served by Furibis herself.” The shops 
and the inns have picturesque names too. There is the Sign of 
the Moor, and the Sign of the Jew, and the Sign of the Lion, 
and one of the Robbers. 

The streets of Castro, especially those near the centre, where 
the crowd is greater, are dirty and ill-smelling in summer. 
Clouds of flies hover about and settle on the pairs of blissfully 
sleeping oxen; the sun pours down his blinding brilliance; not 
a soul passes, and only a few greyhounds, white and black, 
elegant and sad, rove about the streets. . . . 

In all seasons, at twilight, a few young gentlemen promenade 
in the Square. At nine at night in the winter, and at ten in 
summer, begins the reign of the watchmen with their dramatic 
and lamentable cry. 


Alzugaray gave Caesar these details by degrees, while they 
were both seated in the hotel getting ready to dine. 

“And the type? The ethnic type? What is it, according 
to you?” asked Caesar. 

“A type rather thin than fat, supple, with an aquiline nose, 
black eyes. . . .” 

“ Yes, the Iberian type,’”’ said Caesar, “ that is how it struck 
me too. Tall, supple, dolichocephalic. ... It seems to me 
one can try to put something through in this town. . . .” 


III 
CAESAR’S LABOURS 


FIRST STEPS 


66 ND what have you been doing all day? Tell me.” 
“J think, my dear Alzugaray,” said Caesar, 
“that I can say, like my namesake Julius: ‘ Veni, 
vidi, vici.’” 
“The devil! The first day?” 
“ Yes.” 
“Show me. What happened? ” 

_“T left the house and entered the café downstairs. There 
was no one there but a small boy, from whom I ordered a bottle 
of beer and asked if there was a newspaper published here. 
He told me yes, the Castro Mail, an independent weekly. I 
bade him fetch me a copy, even an old one, and he brought me 
these two. I gave them a glance, and then, as if it didn’t 
interest me much, I questioned the lad about Don Calixto. 

“The first impression I obtained was that Don Calixto is 
the most influential person in the town; the second, that besides 
him, either with him or against him, there is a Sefior Don 
Platén Peribafiez, almost as influential as Don Calixto. After- 
wards I read the two numbers of the Castro periodical atten- 
tively, and from this reading I gathered that there is a some- 
what hazy question here about an Asylum, where it seems some 
irregularities have been committed. There is a Republican 
book-dealer, who is a member of the Council, and on whom 
the Workmen’s Club depends, and he has asked for informa- 
tion as to the facts from the Municipality, and the followers 
of Don Calixto and of Don Platén oppose this suggestion as an 
attack on the good-birth, the honour, and the reputation of 
such respectable personages. 

215 


216 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“ Having verified these pieces of news, which are of interest 
for me, I packed off to church and heard the whole eleven 
o’clock mass.” 

“Mighty good! You are quite a man.” 

“‘Mass ended, I went over to the Baptistery arch and stood 
there examining it, as if I felt the most terrible symptoms of 
enthusiasm for carved stone. Afterwards I went into the big 
chapel, which serves also as a pantheon for the Dukes of Castro 
Duro, whose tombs you find in the side niches of the presby- 
tery. These niches are decorated with an efflorescence of 
Gothic, which is most gay and pretty, and among all this stone 
filigree you see the recumbent statues of a number of knights 
and one bishop, who to judge by his sword must have been a 
warrior too. 

“ Nobody remained in the church; the priest, a nice old man, 
fixed his eyes on me and asked me what I thought of the arch. 
And having prepared my lesson, I talked about the Romanesque 
of the XII and XIII Centuries like a professor, and then he 
took me into the sacristy and showed me two paintings on wood 
which I told him were XV Century. 

“So they say,’ the priest agreed. ‘Do you think they are 
Italian or German?’ 

“¢ Ttalian certainly, North Italian.’ I might as well have 
said South German, but I had to decide for something. 

“* And they must be worth . . . ?’ he then asked me with 
eagerness. 

“** My dear man; according,’ I told him. ‘A dealer would 
offer you a hundred or two hundred pesetas apiece. In London 
or New York, well placed, they might be worth twenty or thirty 
thousand francs.’ 

“The ‘ pater’ shot fire out of his eyes. 

“** And what would one have to do about it?’ he asked me. 

“«* My dear man, I think one would have to take some good 
photographs and send them to various trades-people and to the 
museums in the United States.’ 

“* Would it be necessary to write in English?’ 

“Yes, it would be the most practical thing.’ 


CAESAR’S LABOURS 217 


“¢T don’t think there is anybody here that knows how. . . .’ 

““*T would do it, with great pleasure.’ 

“*¢ But are you going to be here for some time?’ 

** £ Yes, it is probable.’ 

“He asked me what I came to Castro Duro for, and I told 
him that I had no other object than to visit Don Calixto Garcia 
Guerrero. 

“‘ Astonishment on the priest’s face. 

* * You know him?’ < 

“¢ Yes, I met him in Rome.’ 

“Do you know where he lives?’ 

oe No.’ 

“ “Then I will take you.’ 

“ The priest and I went out into the street. He wanted to give 
me the sidewalk, and I opposed that as if it were a crime. He 
told me he was more accustomed than I to walking on the 

cobble-stones; and finally, he on the sidewalk and I in the 
gutter, we eV at Don Calais: s Raniee 


“ Was he at ee? i asked Aiiateay. 

“Yes,” said Caesar. ‘“ By the way, on the road there we 
bowed to the present Deputy to the Cortes, he who will be my 
opponent in the approaching election, Sefior Garcia Padilla.” 

“Dear man! What a coincidence! What sort is he?” 

“ He is tall, with a reddish aquiline nose, a greyish mous- 
tache, full of cosmetic, a poor type.” 

“ He is a Liberal? ” 

“Yes, he is a Liberal, because Don Calixto is a Conserva- 
tive. In his heart, nothing.” 

“Good. Go on.” 


DON CALIXTO AT HOME 


“ As I was saying, Don Calixto was at home, in a large 
room on the ground floor, which serves as his office. Don 
Calixto is a tall, supple man, with the blackest of hair which is 
beginning to turn white on the temples, and a white moustache. 
He is at the romantic age of illusions, of hopes. . . .” 


218 ~ CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“ How old is he?” asked Alzugaray. 

“ He isn’t more than fifty-four,” Caesar replied, sarcastically. 
“Don Calixto dresses in black, very fastidiously, and the effect 
is smart, but smacks of the notary. No matter what pains he 
takes to appear graceful and easy in manner, he doesn’t achieve 
the result; he has the inbred humility of one who has taken 
orders in a shop, either as a lad or as a man. 

“Don Calixto received me with great amiability, but with 
a certain air of reserve, as if to say: ‘In Rome I was a merry 
comrade to you, here I am a personage.’ We chatted about 
a lot of things, and before he could ask me what I wanted, I 
pulled out the letter and handed it to him. The old man 
put on his glasses, read attentively, and said: 

“* Very good, very good; we will discuss it later.’ 

“ The priest of course thought that he was in the way, and he 
left. 

“ When we were alone, Don Calixto said: 

“* All right, Caesar, I am happy to see you. I see that you 
remember our conversation in Rome. You must have lunch 
with me and my family.’ 

“* With great pleasure.’ 

“¢ T’ll go and tell them to put on another place.’ 

“Don Calixto went out and left me alone. For a while I 
studied the boss’s office. On the wall, diplomas, appointments, 
in looking-glass frames; a genealogical tree, probably drawn 
day before yesterday; in a book-case, legal books. . . . 

“Don Calixto came back; he asked me if I was tired, and I 
told him no, and when we had crossed the whole width of the 
house, which is huge, he showed me the garden. My boy, 
what a wonderful spot! It hangs over the river and it is a 
marvel. The highest part, which is the part they keep up, 
isn’t worth much; it is in lamentable style; just imagine, there 
is a fountain which is a tin negro that spurts out water from 
all parts. 

“‘ However, the old part of the garden, the lower part, is lovely. 
There is a big tower standing guard over the river, now con- 
verted into a belvedere, with pomegranates, rose-bushes, and 


CAESAR’S LABOURS 219 


climbing plants all around it, and above all, there is an oleander 
that is a marvel . . .; it looks like a fire-work castle or a 
shower of flowers.” 


“ Leave that point,” said Alzugaray. “ You are talking like 
a poor disciple of Ruskin’s.” 

“You are right. But when you see those gardens, you will 
be enthusiastic, too.” 

“ Get ahead.” 


THE POLITICAL POWERS OF CASTRO 


“ During our promenade Don Calixto talked to me of the im- 
mense good he has done for the town and of the ingratitude he 
constantly receives for it. 

“While I listened, I recalled a little periodical in Madrid 
which had no other object than to furnish bombs at reasonable 
prices, and which said, speaking of a manufacturer in Cata- 
lonia: ‘ Seftor So-and-so is the most powerful boss in the prov- 
ince of Tarragona, and even at that there are those who dis- 
pute his bossdom.’ 

“Don Calixto is astonished that when he has done the Cas- 
trians the honour to make them loans at eighty or ninety per- 
cent, they are not fond of him. After the garden we saw the 
house; I won’t tell you anything about it, I don’t want you to 
accuse me again of being a Ruskinian. 

“When we reached the dining-room Don Calixto said: ‘ I 
am going to present you to my family.’ 

“Thereupon, entrance, ceremonies, bows on my part, smiles 

. toute la lyre. Don Calixto’s wife is an insignificant fat 
woman; the two daughters insipid, ungainly, not at all pretty; 
and with them was a little girl of about fifteen or sixteen, a 
niece of Don Calixto’s, a veritable little devil, named Amparo. 
This Amparo is a tiny, flat-faced creature, with black eyes, and 
extraordinarily vivacious and mischievous. During dinner I 
succeeded in irritating the child. 


220 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“T talked gravely with Don Calixto and his wife and daugh- 
ters about Madrid, about the theatrical companies that come to 
this town, about their acquaintances at the Capital. 

“The child interrupted us, bringing us the cat and putting a 
little bow on him, and then making him walk on the key-board 
of the piano. 

“ At half-past one we went to the dining-room. Dinner was 
kilometres long; and the conversation turned on Rome and 
Paris. Don Calixto drank more and more, I, too; and at the 
end of the meal there was a bit of toasting, from which my 
political intentions were made manifest. 

“The elder daughter, whose name is Adela, asked me if I 
liked music. I told her yes, almost closing my eyes, as if 
deliriously, and we went into the drawing-room. Without pay- 
ing attention, I listened, during the horrors of digestion, to a 
number of sonatas, now and then saying: ‘ Magnificent! 
How wonderful that is!’ 

“The father was enchanted, the mother enchanted, the sister 
likewise; the little girl was the one who stared at me with 
questioning black eyes. She must have been thinking: ‘ What 
species of bird is this?’ I believe the damned child realized 
that I was acting a comedy. 

“ About four the ladies and I went out into the garden. Don 
Calixto has the habit of taking an afternoon nap, and he left 
us. I succeeded in bringing myself to, in the open air. Don 
Calixto’s wife showed me over an abandoned part of the house, 
in which there is an old kitchen as big as a cathedral, with a 
stone chimney like a high altar, with the arms of the Dukes of 
Castro. We chatted, I was very pleasant to the mother, courte- 
ous to the daughters, and coldly indifferent with the little niece. 
I was bored, after having exhausted all subjects of conversa- 
tion, when Don Calixto reappeared and carried me off to his 
office. 

“ The conference was important; he explained the situation of 
the Conservative forces of the district to me. These forces are 
represented, principally, by three men: Don Calixto, a Sefior 
Don Platén, and a friar. Don Calixto represents the modern 


CAESAR’S LABOURS 221 


Conservative tendency and is, let us say, the Canovas of the 
district; with him are the rich members of the Casino, the su- 
perior judge, the doctors, the great proprietors, etc. Don Platén 
Peribdfiez, a silversmith in the Calle Mayor, represents the 
middle-class Conservatives; his people are less showy, but more 
in earnest and better disciplined; this Platonian or Platonic 
party is made up of chandlers, silversmiths, small merchants, 
and the poor priests. The friar, who represents the third Con- 
servative nucleus, is Father Martin Lafuerza. Father Martin 
is prior of the Franciscan monastery, which was established here 
after the Order was expelled from Filinas. 

‘Father Martin is an Ultramontanist up to the eyes. He di- 
rects priests, friars, nuns, sisters, and is the absolute master 
of a town nearby called Cidones, where the women are very 
pious. 

“ Despite their piety, the reputation of those ladies cannot be 
very good, because there is a proverb, certainly not very gal- 
lant: ‘Don’t get either a wife or a mule at Cidones; neither 
a wife nor a mule nor a pig at Grifdn.’ 

“‘ Opposed to these three Conservative nuclei are the friends 
of the present Deputy, who amount to no more than the official 
element, which is always on the ruling side, and a small guerilla 
band that meets in the Workingmen’s Casino, and is composed 
principally of a Republican bookseller, an apothecary who in- 
vents explosives, also Republican, an anarchist doctor, a free- 
thinking weaver, and an innkeeper whom they call Furibis, who 
is also a smuggler and a man with hair on his chest. 


DON PLATON PERIBANEZ 


“ After having given me these data, Don Calixto told me that 
by counting on Sefior Peribafiez, the election was almost sure; 
and since the quicker things go the better, he proposed that we 
should go to see him, and I immediately agreed. 

“ Don Platén Peribafiez has a silver-shop fitted up in the old 
style; a small show-window, full of rattles, Moorish anklets, 
necklaces, little crosses, et cetera; a narrow, dark shop, then a 


222 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


long passage, and at the rear, a workroom with a window on a 
court. 

“ As his assistant in the silver-shop, Don Platon has a boy 
who is a nonsuch. I believe that if you took him to London 
and exhibited him, saying beforehand: ‘ Bear in mind, gen- 
tlemen, that this is not a monkey or an anthropoid, but a 
man,’ you would rake in a mad amount of pounds sterling. 

“We went into Don Platdn’s little shop, we asked the young 
macaco for him, and we passed on into the workshop. 

“Sefior Peribdfiez is a man of medium stature, dressed in: 
black, with a trimmed white beard, grey eyes, and modest man- 
ners. He speaks coldly, thinks closely of what he is saying; 
he has a monotonous, slow voice, and nothing escapes him. 

“Don Calixto presented me to him; the silversmith gave me 
his hand as if with a certain repugnance, and the boss explained 
who I was and what I was after. 

“Don Platén said that he could not reply categorically with- 
out consulting with his friends and with Father Martin. The 
Father has other candidates; one the Duke of Castro himself; 
and the other a rich farmer of the town. 

“ The Duke of Castro presents no other drawback than that 
he has been arrested in Paris for an insignificant swindle he has 
committed; but it seems that a rich Cuban wants to get him out 
of his difficulties on condition that he will marry his daughter. 

“Tf he comes out of jail and gets married, then they will 
nominate him as Deputy from here. 

“IT said to Don Platoén, in case the worthy Duke does not come 
out of jail, would he have difficulties over my being his candi- 
date. He replied that I am very young, and after many cir- 
cumlocutions he said flatly that he doesn’t know if I would be 
accepted or not as a candidate by his followers; but in case I 
were, the conditions precedent would be: first, that I would not 
interfere in any way in the affairs of the district, which would 
be ventilated in the town, as previously; secondly, that I should 
bear the costs of the election, which would amount approxi- 
mately to some ten thousand pesetas. 

“ Don Calixto looked at me questioningly, and I smiled in a 


CAESAR’S LABOURS 223 


way to make it understood that I agreed, and after extracting 
a promise from Don Platdén that he will give us a definite an- 
swer this week, we took leave of him and went to the Casino. 

“ There I was introduced to the judge, an Andalusian who has 
a spotless reputation for veniality, and to the mayor, who is a 
rich farmer; and the most important persons of the town being 
thus gathered at one table, we chatted about politics, women, 
and gambling. 

“I told them a number of tales; I told them that I once lost 
ten thousand dollars at Monte Carlo, playing with two Russian 
princes and a Yankee millionairess; I talked to them about the 
mysteries and crimes of gambling houses and of those great 
centres of pleasure, and I left them speechless. At half-past 
nine, with -a terrible headache, I came back here. I think I 
have not lost a day, eh? ” 

“No! The devil! What speed!” exclaimed Alzugaray. 
“ But you are not eating any supper. Don’t you intend to take 
anything? ” 

“No. I am going to see if I can sleep. Listen, day after 
tomorrow we are both invited to dine at Don Calixto’s.” © 

** Me, too? ” 

“Yes; I told them that you are a rich tourist, and they want 
to know you.” 

“ And what am I to do there? ” 

“You can study these people, as an entomologist studies 
insects. Listen, it wouldn’t do any harm if you took a walk 
to that town near here, named Cidones, to see if you can find 
out what sort of bird this Father Martin is.” 

“ All right.” 

“And if you don’t mind, go into that Republican bookseller’s 
shop, under any pretext, and talk to him.” 

“T will do so.” 

“ Then, till tomorrow! ” 

“You are going now? ” 

“ Yes.”’ 

“ Goodnight, then.” ; . 

Caesar left his room and marched off to sleep. 


IV 
THE BOOKSELLER AND THE ANARCHISTS 


E following day, very early in the morning, Alzu- 
garay went to a livery-stable which they had directed 
him to at the hotel, and asked to hire a horse. They 

brought him a large, old one; he mounted, and crossed the town 
more slowly than if he had been on foot, and set out for 
Cidones. | 

On reaching that town, he left the horse at a blacksmith’s and 
went up through the narrow lanes of Cidones, which are hor- 
ribly long, dark, and steep. 

Then he ascended to la Pefia, the rock on which the Fran- 
ciscan monastery stands; but was unable to obtain any fresh 
information about Father Martin and his friars. The people 
with whom he talked were not disposed to unbosom themselves, 
and he preferred not to insist, so as not to be suspected. 

Afterwards he went down to Cidones again and returned to 
Castro Duro. Caesar was still in bed. Alzugaray went into 
his room. 

, “Don’t you intend to get up? ” he asked him. 

« No.”’ 

“ Don’t you intend to eat, either? ” 

“ Neither.” 

“ Are you sick? ” 

4 No.” 

“What is the matter with you? Laziness?” 

“ Something like that.” 

Alzugaray ate alone, and after he had had coffee, he directed 
his steps to the bookstore of the Republican councilman, of 
whorm Caesar had spoken to him. He found it in a cornor of 

224 


THE BOOKSELLER 225 


the Square; and it was at the same time a stationer’s shop and 
a newsdealer’s. Behind the counter were an old man and a 
lad. 

Alzugaray went in. He bought various Madrid periodicals 
from the lad, and then addressing the old man, asked him: 

“‘Haven’t you some sort of a map of the province, or of the 
neighbourhood of Castro Duro? ” 

“No, sir, there isn’t one.” 

“ Nor a guidebook, perhaps? ” 

“Nor that either. At the townhall we have @ map of the 
town... .” 

“ Only of the part built up? ” 

“ Yes.”’ 

“Then it would do me no good.” 

“ You want a map for making excursions, eh? ” 

“ That’s it. Yes.” 

“Well, there is none. We are very much behind the times.” 

“ Yes, that’s true. It wouldn’t cost very much, and it would 
be useful for ever, both to the people here and to strangers.” 

“ Just tell that to our town government! ” exclaimed the old 
bookseller. “‘ Whatever is not for the advantage of the rich 
and the clerical element, there is no hope of.” 

“Those gentlemen have a great deal of influence here?” 
asked Alzugaray. 

“Uf! Enormous. More every day.” 

“ But there don’t appear to be many convents.” 

“No, there are not many convents; but there is one that 
counts for a hundred, and that is the one at Cidones.” 

“ Why is that? ” 

“ Because it has a wild beast for a prior. Father Martin 
Lafuerza. He is famous all through this region. And he is 
a man of talent, there’s no denying it, but despotic and exigent. 
He is into everything, catechizes the women, dominates the men. 
There is no way to fight against him. Here am I with this 
bookshop, and I have my pension as a lieutenant, which gives 
me enough to live very meanly, and with what little I get out 
of the periodicals I scrape along. Besides, I am a Republican 


226 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


and very liberal, and I like propaganda. If I didn’t, I should 
have left all this long ago, because they have waged war to the 
death on me, an infamous sort of war which a person that lives 
in Madrid cannot understand; calumnies that come from no 
one knows where, atrocious accusations, everything. . . .” 

Alzugaray stared at the bookseller’s grey eyes, which were 
extraordinarily bright. The old man was tall, stooped, griz- 
zled, with a prominent nose and a beard trimmed to a point. 

“ But you have stuck firmly to your post,” said Alzugaray. 

“Having been a soldier must do something for a man,” re- 
plied the bookseller. “ He learns not to draw back in the face 
of danger. And this is my life. Now I am a councillor and I 
work at the town hall as much as I can, even though I know I 
shall accomplish nothing. Grafting goes on before my face, 
I know it exists, and yet it is impossible to find it. Six months 
ago I informed the judge of irregularities committed in a Sis- 
ters’ Asylum, things I had proof of. . . . The judge laid my 
information on the table, and things went on as if nothing had 
happened.” 

“Spain is ina bad way. It is a pity! ” exclaimed Alzugaray. 

“You people in Madrid, and I don’t say this to irritate you, 
do not understand what goes on in the small towns.” 

““My dear man, I have never taken any part in political 
affairs.” 

“ Well, I think that everybody ought to take part in politics, 
because it is for the general interest.” 

At this moment two persons entered the bookshop. Alzu- 
garay was going to leave, but the bookseller said to him: 

“ If you have nothing to do, sit down for a while.” 

Alzugaray sat down and examined the new arrivals. One 
of them was a skinny man, with bushy hair and whiskers; the 
other was a smooth-shaven party, short, cross-eyed, dressed in 
copper-coloured cloth edged with broad black braid. 

“ The Rebel hasn’t come? ” asked the whiskered one. 

“No,” replied the bookseller. “It didn’t come out this 
week.” 

“They must have reported it,” said the whiskered one. 


THE BOOKSELLER 227 


“Yes, probably.” 

“Has the doctor been in?” the shaven little man with the 
black braid asked in his turn. 

“ No.” 

“ All right. Let’s go see if we can find him in the club. 
Salutations! ” 

“* Good-bye.” 

“Who are those rascals? ” asked Alzugaray, when they had 
gone out. 

“They are two anarchists that we have here, who accuse me 
of being a bourgeois... ha... ha.... The shaven one 
is the son of the landlady of an inn who is called Furibis, and 
they call him that too. He used to be a Federalist. They call 
the other one ‘ Whiskers,’ and he came here from Linares, not 
long ago.” 

“What do they do?” 

“Nothing. They sit in the club chatting, and nowadays the 
doctor we have here runs with them, Dr. Ortigosa, who is half 
mad. He will be in soon. Then you will see a type. He is 
a very bad-tempered man, and is always looking for an excuse 
to quarrel. But above all, he is an enemy of religion. He 
never says Good-bye, but Salutations or Farewell. In the same 
way, he doesn’t say Holy Week; but Clerical Week. His great 
pleasure is to find a temperament of a fibre like his own; then 
his eyes flash and he begins to swear. And if he is hit, he 
stands for it.” 

“He is an anarchist, too? ” 

“How do I know? He doesn’t know himself. Formerly, 
for four or five months, he got out a weekly paper named The 
Protest, and sometimes he wrote about the canalization of the 
river, and again about the inhabitants of Mars.” 

The bookseller and Alzugaray chatted about many other 
things, and after some while the bookseller said: 

“ Here is Dr. Ortigosa. He is coming in.” 

The door opened and a slim individual appeared, worn and 
sickly, with a black beard and spectacles. His necktie was 
crooked, his suit dirty, and he had his hat in his hand. 


228 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


He stared impertinently at Alzugaray, cast a glance at a 
newspaper, and set to shouting and talking ill of everything. 

“This is a town full of dumb beasts,” he said from time to 
time, with the energy of exasperation. 

Then, supposing Alzugaray to come from Madrid, he started 
to speak ill of the Madrilefos. 

“They are a collection of fools,” he said roundly, various 
times. ‘They know nothing, they understand nothing, and 
still they talk authoritatively about everything.” 

Alzugaray put up with the downpour as if it had no refer- 
ence to him, looking over a newspaper; and when the doctor 
was in the thick of his discourse, Alzugaray got up, shook hands 
with the bookseller, thanked him, and left the shop. 

The doctor looked at him over his glasses with fury, and 
began to walk up and down in the bookstore. 

Alzugaray went to the hotel, arranging in his memory the 
data collected. 

Caesar was feeling well, and the two of them talked of the 
bookseller and his friends and of Father Martin Lafuerza. 

“T am going to jot down all these points,” said Caesar. 
“Tt wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to go on cultivating the 
bookseller.” 

“T am going to.” 

“Tomorrow, you know,” said Caesar. ‘ Grand dinner at 
Don Calixto’s. The practical manceuvres begin.” 

“ Very good.” 


V 
THE BANQUET 


THE GUESTS 


HE table had been set in that wonderful gallery of the 
ancient palace of the Dukes of Castro Duro, which 
looked out over the garden. The early autumn 

weather was of enchanting softness and sweetness. 

Caesar and Alzugaray were very smart and elegant, with 
creases in their trousers: Caesar dressed in black, with the 
ceremonious aspect that suits a grave man; Alzugaray in a light 
suit with a coloured handkerchief in his breast pocket. 

“J think we are ‘ gentlemen’ today,” said Caesar. 

** It seems so to me.” 

They entered the house and were ushered into the drawing- 
room. The majority of the guests were already there; the 
proper introductions and bows took place. Caesar stayed in the 
group of men, who remained standing, and Alzugaray went over 
to enter the sphere of Don Calixto’s wife and the judge’s wife. 

The judge, from the first moment, treated Caesar like a man 
of importance, and began to call him Don Caesar every moment, 
and to find everything he said, good. 

In the ladies’ group there was an old priest, a tall, big, deaf 
man, a great friend of the family, named Don Ramon. 

The judge’s wife told Alzugaray that this Don Ramon was a 
simpleton. 

He was the pastor of a very rich hermitage nearby, the 
hermitage of la Vega, and he had spent all the money he had 
got by an inheritance, in fixing up the church. 

The poor man was childlike and sweet. He said various 
times that he had many cloaks for the Virgin in the sacristy 

229 


230 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


of his church, and that he wished they could be given to poor 
parishes, because two or three were enough in his. 


AMPARITO 


While they were talking an automobile horn was heard, and 
a little later Don Calixto’s niece entered the drawing-room. 

This was Amparito, the flat-faced girl with black eyes, of 
whom Caesar had spoken to Alzugaray. Her father accom- 
panied her. 

The priest patted the girl’s cheeks. 

Her father was a clumsy man, red, sunburned, with the face 
of a contractor or a miner. 

The girl took off her cap and the veil she wore in the auto- 
mobile, and seated herself between Don Calixto’s daughters. 
Alzugaray looked her over. Amparito really was attractive; 
she had a short nose, bright black eyes, red lips too thick, white 
teeth, and smooth cheeks. She wore her hair down, in ring- 
lets; but in spite of her infantile get-up, one saw that she was 
already a woman. 

“Caesar is right; this is quite a lively girl,” murmured 
Alzugaray. 

The mayor’s son now arrived, and his sister. He was an in- 
significant little gentleman, mild and courteous; he had studied 
law at Salamanca, and it seemed that he had certain intentions 
about Don Calixto’s second daughter. ; 

All the guests being assembled, the master of the house said 
that, since nobody was missing and it was time, they might pass 
into the gallery, where the table was set. 

At one end the lady of the house seated herself, having the 
priest on one side and the judge on the other; at the other end, 
Don Calixto, between the judge’s wife and the mayor’s daugh- 
ter. Caesar had a seat assigned between Don Calixto’s elder 
daughter and Amparito, and Alzugaray one between the second 
daughter and the judge’s girl. 

A few moments before they sat down, Amparito went running 
out of the gallery into the garden. 


THE BANQUET 231 


“* Where has that child gone? ” asked Don Calixto’s wife. 

“ Something or other has occurred to her,” said Amparito’s 
father, laughing. 

The girl reappeared a little later with a number of yellow 
and red chrysanthemums in her hand. 

She gave red ones to the mayor’s daughter and to her cousins, 
who were all three brunettes, and a yellow one to the judge’s 
daughter, who was blond. Then she proceeded to the men. 

“This one is for you,” to the mayor’s son; “this one for 
you,” and she gave Alzugaray a yellow one; “this one for 
you,” and she gave Caesar a red one; “‘ and this one for me,” 
and she put a similar flower in her bosom. 

“ And the rest of us? ” asked Don Calixto. 

“I don’t give you chrysanthemums, because your wives would 
be jealous,” replied Amparito. 

“Man, man!” exclaimed the judge; “how does it strike 
you, Don Calixto? That these little girls know the human 
heart pretty well? ” 

_ “These children do not know how to appreciate our merits,” 
said Don Calixto. 

“‘ Oh, yes; your merits are for your wives,” replied Amparito. 

“TI must inform you that my friend Caesar is married, too,” 
said Alzugaray, laughing. 

“ Pshaw! ” she exclaimed, smiling and showing her white, 
strong teeth. ‘“‘ He hasn’t the face of a married man.” 

“Yes, he has got the face of a married man. Look at him 
hard.” 

“Very well; as his wife isn’t here, she won’t quarrel with 
me.” 

Alzugaray examined this girl. She had great vivacity; any 
idea that occurred to her was reflected in her face in a manner 
so lively and charming, that she was an interesting spectacle 
to watch. 

At first the conversation was of a languid and weary charac- 
ter; Don Calixto, the judge, and Caesar started in to exchange 
political reflexions of crass vulgarity. Caesar was gallantly 
attentive to the wants of Don Calixto’s elder daughter, and less 


232 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


gallantly so to his other neighbour Amparito; the mayor’s son, 
despite the fact that his official mission was to court one of 
Don Calixto’s girls, looked more at Amparito than at his in- 
tended, and Alzugaray listened smilingly to the young person’s 
sallies. 

Toward the middle of the meal the conversation grew brisker; 
the judge recounted, with much art, a mysterious crime that had 
occurred in a town in Andalusia among farming people, and he 
succeeded in keeping them all hanging to his lips. 

At the end of the recital, the conversation became general; the 
younger element talked together, and Caesar made comments 
about what the judge had told them, and defended the most 
immoral and absurd conclusions, as though they were Conserva- 
tive ideas. . 

Caesar’s observations were discussed by the men, and the 
judge and Don Calixto agreed that Caesar was.a man of real | 
talent, who would play a great rdle in Congress. 

“Please give me a little wine,” said Amparito, holding her 
glass to Alzugaray; ‘“‘ your friend pays no attention to me; I 
have asked him for some wine twice, and nothing doing.” 

Caesar acted as if he hadn’t heard and kept on talking; 
Amparito took the glass, wet her lips in it, and looked at Alzu- 
garay maliciously. 

After eating and having coffee, as the two married ladies and 
the girls were inert from so long a meal, they arose, and Alzu- 
garay, the mayor’s son, and Amparito’s father followed them. 
Don Calixto, the judge, and Caesar remained at table. The 
priest had gone to sleep. 

A bottle of chartreuse was brought, and they started in drink- 
ing and smoking. 

Caesar’s throat grew dry and he became nauseated from 
drinking, smoking, and talking. 

At five the judge took his leave, because he had to glance 
in at court; Don Calixto wanted to take his nap, and after he 
had escorted Caesar to the garden, he went away. The two 
married ladies were alone, because the young people had gone 
with Amparito’s father on an excursion to the Devil’s Thresh- 


THE BANQUET 233 


old, a defile where the river flows between some red precipitous 
rocks full of clefts. 

Caesar joined the two ladies, and kept up a monotonous, 
dreary conversation about the ways of the great city. 

At twilight all the excursionists came back from their jaunt. 
One of the young ladies played something very noisy on the 
piano, and the judge’s daughter was besought to recite one of 
Campoamor’s poems. 

“ Tt is a very pretty thing,” said the judge’s wife, “a girl who 
laments because her lover abandons her.” 

“Given the customs of Spain, as they are, the girl would be 
in a house of prostitution,” said Caesar in a low tone, ironically. 

“Shut up,” replied Alzugaray. 

The girl recited the poem, and Caesar asked Alzugaray sar- 
castically if those verses were by the girl’s father, because they 
sounded to him like the verses of a notary or a judge of the 
Court of First Instance. 

Then somebody suggested that they should have supper there. 

Caesar noticed that this plan did not appeal to the mistress 
of the house, and he said: 

“One should be moderate in all things. I am going home 
to bed.” 

After this somewhat pedantic phrase, which to Don Calixto 
seemed a pearl, Caesar took leave of his new acquaintances with 
a great deal of ceremony and coolness. Alzugaray said he 
would remain a while longer. 

When Caesar was bowing to Amparito, she asked him jok- 
ingly: 

“Ts it your wife that keeps you in such good habits? ” 

“My wife!” exclaimed Caesar, surprised. 

“Didn’t your friend say .. .” 

“Ah! Yes, it is she who makes me have such good habits.” 

This said, he left the drawing-room and went quickly down 
the stairs. The cool night air made him shiver, and he went 
with a heavy, aching head to his hotel, and got to bed. He 
slept very profoundly, but not for more than an hour, and woke 
up sweaty and thirsty. 


234 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


His headache was gone. It was not yet past eleven. He 
lighted the light, and sitting up in bed, set to thinking over the 
probabilities of success in his undertaking. 

Meanwhile he stared at the red chrysanthemum which was 
in the button-hole of his coat, and remembered Amparito. 

“That child is a prodigy of coquetry and bad bringing-up,” 
he thought with vexation; “ these emancipated small town young 
ladies are more unattractive than any others. I prefer Don 
Calixto’s daughter, who at least is naively and unobjectionably 
stupid. But this other one is unsupportable.” 

Without knowing why, he felt more antipathy for the girl 
than was natural under the circumstances. He did not like to 
admit it to himself; but he felt the hostility which is produced 
in strong, self-willed characters by the presence of another per- 
son with a strong character proposing to exert itself. 


THE TWO FRIENDS’ COMMENTS 


Caesar was thinking over the details of the visit, when Alzu- 
garay came home, and seeing a light in Caesar’s room, went in 
there. Alzugaray was quite lively. The two friends passed 
the persons met that day in ironic review, and in general they 
were agreed about everything, except about valuing Amparito’s 
character. 

Caesar found her distasteful, pert and impertinent; to his 
friend, on the contrary, she had seemed very attractive, very 
amiable and very clever. 

“To me,” said Caesar, “ she appears one of these small town 
lasses who have a flirtation with a student, then with a captain, 
and finally marry some rich brute, and get fat, and turn into 
old sows, and grow moustaches.” 

“In that I think you are fundamentally unjust,” said Alzu- 
garay. “ Amparito is not 4 small town lass, for she lives in 
Madrid almost all year. Besides, that makes no difference; 
what I have not observed is her committing any folly or im- 
pertinence.” 


THE BANQUET 235 


“ Dear man, it all depends on how you look at it. To me her 
conduct seemed bad, to you it seems all right.” 

“ You are an extremist, for I can assure you that you were 
actually rude to her.” 

“ Actually rude, I don’t think; but I admit that I was cool 
and not very amiable.” . 

“ And why were you?” 

“ First, because it is politic of me, since Don Calixto’s family 
do not care for Amparito; and secondly, because the little crea- 
ture didn’t please me, either.” 

“And why didn’t she please you? For no reason at all?” 

“T am not partial to the platyrrhine races.” 

“What nonsense! And you wish to look at things clearly! 
A man that judges people by their noses! ” 

“It seems to you little to go on? A brunette girl, brachi- 
cephalic and rather platyrrhine. . . . There is no more to say.” 

“ And if she had been blond, dolichocephalic, and long-nosed, 
she would have seemed all right to you.” 

“Her ethnic type would have seemed all right.” 

“ Let’s not discuss it. What’s the use? But I feel that you 
are arbitrary to an extreme.” 

“Tf she knew of our discussion, the young thing couldn’t 
complain, because if she has had a systematic detractor in me, 
she has found an enthusiastic defender in you.” 

“Yes, dear man; it is only at such long intervals that I see 
a person with ingenuousness and enthusiasm, that when I do 
meet one, I get a real joy from it.” 

“You are a sentimentalist.” 

“ That’s true; and you have become an inquisitor.” 

“Most certainly. I believe we agree on that and on all the 
rest.’”’ 

“T think so. All right. Good-bye!” said Alzugaray, ill- 
humouredly. 

“ Salutations! ” replied Caesar. 


VI 
UNCLE CHINAMAN 


CIDONES 


AESAR impatiently awaited Sefior Peribdfiez’s reply, 
so that he might return to Madrid. He was fed up 
with Don Calixto’s conversation and his wife’s, and 

with the familiarity they had established with him. 

Alzugaray, on the other hand, was entertained and content. 
Amparito’s father showed a great liking for him and took him 
everywhere in his automobile. 

Caesar, in order to satisfy his requirements for isolation, had 
begun to get up very early and take walks on the highway. He 
almost always walked too far, and was done up for the whole 
day, and at first he slept badly at night. 

He wanted to see, one by one, the parts of his future realm, 
the scene where his initiative was to bear seed and his plans to 
be realized. 

A lot of ideas occurred to him: to build a bridge here, to take 
advantage there of the fall of the river and establish a big 
electric plant for industrial purposes. He would have liked to 
change everything he saw, in an instant. | 

To think of these sleeping forces irritated him: the waterfall, 
lost without leaving its energy anywhere; the ravine, which 
might be transformed into an irrigation reservoir; the river, 
which was flowing gently without fertilizing the fields; the land 
around the hermitage, which might have been converted into a 
park, with a bright, gay schoolhouse; all these things that could 
be done and were not done, seemed to him more real than the 
people with whom he talked and lived. 

One morning Caesar walked to Cidones; the sun shone 

236 


UNCLE CHINAMAN 237 


strongly on the highway, and he reached the town choked and 
thirsty. 

The streets of Cidones were so narrow, so cold and damp, 
that Caesar shivered on entering the first one, and he turned 
back, and instead of going inside that polypus of dark clefts, 
he walked around it by the road. On a small house with an 
arbour, which was on a corner, he saw a sign saying: ‘ Café 
Espafiol ’; and went in. 


THE CAFE ESPANOL 


The café was dark and completely empty, but at one end 
there was a balcony where the sun entered. Caesar crossed the 
café and sat down near the balcony. 

He called several times, and clapped his hands, and a girl 
appeared. 

“ What do you want?” she asked. 

“ Something to drink. A bottle of beer.” 

“ JT will call Uncle Chinaman.” 

The girl went out, and soon after a thick, chubby man came 
in, with a bottle of beer in his hand, the label of which he 
showed to Caesar, asking him if that was what he wanted. 

“Yes, sir; that will do very well.” 

The man opened the bottle with his corkscrew, put it on the 
table, and as he seemed to have a desire to enter into conver- 
sation, Caesar asked him: 

“‘ Why did the girl tell me that Uncle Chinaman would come? 
Who is the Chinaman? ” 

“The Chinaman, or Uncle Chinaman, as you like; I am.” 

“My dear man! ” 

“Yes, we all have nicknames here. They called my father 
that, and they call me that. Psh! It makes no difference. 
Because if a person is cross about it, it’s all the worse. A few 
days ago a muleteer from a town in the district arrived here, 
and went to the inn, and as he had no nickname and they are 
very fond here in Cidones of giving one to every living crea- 
ture, they said to him: ‘No matter how short a while you stay 
here, you will be given a nickname’; and he answered con- 


238 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


temptuously: ‘Bah! Little fear.’ Soon after, as he was cross- 
ing the square, a girl said to him: ‘ Good-bye, Little Fear! ’ and 
Little Fear it remained.” 

As Uncle Chinaman seemed very communicative, Caesar 
asked him some questions about life in the town. 

Uncle Chinaman talked a great deal and with great clear- 
ness. According to him, the cause of all trouble in the town 
was cowardice. The two or three bosses of Castro and Father 
Martin ruled their party arbitrarily, and the rest of the people 
didn’t dare breathe. 

The poor didn’t understand that by being united they could 
offset the influence of the rich, and even succeed in dominating 
them. Besides, fear didn’t permit them to move. 

“ But fear of what?” said Caesar. 

“ Fear of everything; fear that they will levy a tax, that they 
won’t provide work, that they will take your son for a soldier, 
that they will put you in jail for something or other, that the 
two or three bullies who are in the bosses’ service might beat 
you.” 

“ Does their tyranny go as far as that?” 

“They do whatever they choose.” 

The Chinaman, who looked more like a Tartar, could make 
himself quite clear. If it had not been that he used the wrong 
words and had an itch for unusual ones, he would have given 
the impression of being a most intelligent man. 

He said he was anti-clerical, declared himself a pantheist, 
and spoke of the “ controversories ” he maintained with different 
persons. 

“A relative of mine who is a monk,” he said, “is always 
reprehending me, and saying: ‘ Lucas, you are a Free-Thinker.’ 
. . . ‘And it’s greatly to my credit,’ I tell him.” 

Then, apropos of his monkish relative, he told a scandalous 
story. A niece of the Chinaman’s, who had served for some 
while in the café, had gone to live with this monk. 

Uncle Chinaman’s account of it was rather grotesque. 

“T had a niece,” he said, “in the house, you know, very 
spruce, very good-looking, with breasts as hard as a rock. My 


UNCLE CHINAMAN 239 


wife loved her as ‘ muchly ’ as if she had been our daughter, and 
so did I. Suddenly we heard the poor child had made a false 
step .. . or two false steps . . . and a little while later the 
girl was in a bad condition. Well, then; she went to town, 
and came back here to the café, and again we heard that the 
poor child had made a false step . . . or two false steps; and 
as I have daughters, you know, this ‘pro . . . missiousness’ 
didn’t please me, and I went and told her: ‘ Look here, Maria, 
this isn’t right at all, and what you ought to do is get out.’ She 
understood me, and went away, and went to her uncle the monk, 
and the two of them formed a ‘cohabit.’ ... Curse her! I 
went after them; and if I ever find them, I’ll kill them. All 
very well for the poor child to make a false step . . . or two 
false steps; but this thing of getting into a ‘cohabit’ with a 
monk, and he her uncle, that is a ‘ hulimination ’ for the family. 
You may believe that wé had to empty the cup down to the 
‘ drugs.’ ”? 


FATHER MARTIN 


Caesar was listening to Uncle Chinaman with joy, when he 
saw two friars passing along the road below the balcony. 

“They are from the monastery of la Pefia, I suppose,” he 
said. 

The Chinaman looked out and replied: 

“ One of them is the prior, Father Lafuerza. The other is an 
intriguing young chap who has been here only a short while.” 

‘Man, I have to see them,” said Caesar. 

“They are coming up the street now.” 

Uncle Chinaman and Caesar went to the other end of the 
café, and waited for them to pass. . 

The younger of the two friars had an air of mock humility, 
and was weakly-looking, with a straggling yellowish beard and 
a crafty expression; Father Martin, on the contrary, looked like 
a pasha parading through his dominions. He was tall, stout, 
of an imposing aspect, with a grizzly blond beard, blue eyes, 
and a straight, well-shaped nose. 

The two friars came up the narrow, steep street, stopping to 


240 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


talk to the women that were sewing and embroidering in the 


arcades. 
Caesar and the Chinaman followed them with their eyes until 


the two friars turned a corner. Then Caesar left the café and 
walked back to Castro Duro. 


VII 
A TRYING SCENE 


ON PLATON PERIBANEZ’S reply was delayed 
longer than he had promised. No one knew whether 
the Duke of Castro Duro would get married or not 

get married, whether he would come out of prison or stay in. 
Caesar had nothing for it but to wait, although he was already 
fed up with his stay. Alzugaray had a good time; he visited 
the surrounding towns in the company of Amparito and her 
father. Caesar, on the other hand, began to be bored. Accus- 
tomed to live with the independence of a savage, the social train 
of a town like Castro irritated him. 

His good opinion of people was in direct ratio to the indiffer- 
ence they felt for him. Amparito’s father was one of those who 
showed most antipathy. Sometimes he invited him to go mo- 
toring, but only for politeness. Caesar used to reply to these 
invitations with a courteous refusal. 

Amparito, who was doubtless accustomed to seeing every- 
body in town fluttering about her, was wounded at this indif- 
ference and took every chance to see Caesar, and then shot her 
wit at him and was sharply impertinent. 

The young creature was more intelligent than she had at first 
appeared and she spoke very plainly. 

Caesar could not permit a young girl to make fun of him 
and combat his ideas for her own amusement. 

“‘Let’s see, Moncada,” Amparito said to him one day in the 
gallery at Don Calixto’s. ‘“‘ What are your political plans? ” 

“You wouldn’t understand them,” replied Caesar. 

“Why not? Do you think I am so stupid? ” 

“No. It is merely that politics are not a matter for chil- 
dren.” 

241 


242 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“Ah! But how old do you think I am?” she asked. 

“You must be twelve or thirteen.” 

“You are a malicious joker, Sefor Moncada. You know 
that I am almost seventeen.” 

“I don’t. How should I know it?” 

“ Recause I told your friend Alzugaray. .. . 

“ All right, but I don’t ask my friend what you have told 
him.” 

“Tt doesn’t interest you? Very good. You are very polite. 
But your politics do interest me. Come on, tell me. What re- 
forms do you intend to make in the town? What improve- 
ments are you going to give the inhabitants? For I warn you, 
Sefior Moncada, that they are all going to vote against you other- 
wise. I will tell my father.” © 

“‘T don’t believe his political interest is so keen. ” 

“Tt is keen enough, and my father will do what I tell him. 
My father says that you are ambitious.” 

“Tf I were, I should make love to you, because you are 
rich.” 

“And do you suppose I would respond?” 

“T don’t know, but I should try it, as others do; and you 
can see that I don’t try.” 

Amparito bit her lips and said ironically: 

“Are you reserving yourself for my cousin Adelaida?” 

“T am not reserving myself for anybody.” 

“We couldn’t say that you are very amiable.” 

“That is true. I never have been.” 

“If you keep on like that when you are a Deputy... . 

“ What difference is it to you whether I am a Deputy or not? 
Is it because you have some beau who wants the place? If it 
is, tell me. I will withdraw in his favour. You must see that 
I can do no more,” said Caesar jokingly. 

“And how you would hate me then; if you had to give up 
being a Deputy on my account! ” 

“ No.” 

“You hate me already.” 

“No. You are mistaken.” 


A TRYING SCENE 243 


“Yes. I believe if you could, you would strike me.” 

“‘ No, the most I should do would be to shut you up in a dark 
room.” 

“You are an odious, antipathetic man. I thought I rather 
liked you, but I only hate you.” 

“ You know already, Amparito, that I am a candidate for 
Deputy, but not one for you.” 

“ All right. All right. I don’t wish to hear any more stupid 
remarks.” 

“The stupid remarks are those you are making.” 

And Caesar, who was beginning to feel angry, rebuked Ampa- 
rito too severely, for her coquetry, her bad intentions, and her 
desire to humiliate and mortify people without any reason. 

Amparito listened to him, pale and panting. 

“ And after all,” said Caesar, “all this is nothing to me. 
If I am in your family’s way, or even in your way, I can go 
away from here, and all is ended.” 

“No, do not go away,” murmured Amparito, raising her 
handkerchief to her eyes and beginning to weep bitterly. 

Caesar felt deeply grieved; all his anger disappeared, and he 
stood there, amazed, and not knowing what to do. 

“Do not cry,” exclaimed Caesar; “ what will they think of 
me? Come, don’t cry. It is childish.” 

At that moment Amparito’s father entered the gallery, and 
he came running to the girl’s side. 

“What have you done to my daughter? ” he cried, approach- 
ing Caesar threateningly. 

“JT, nothing,” he said. 

“You have. What has he done to you?” screamed the 
father. 

“Nothing, Papa. Do not shriek that way, for God’s sake,” 
moaned Amparito; “I was entirely to blame.” 

Moe: DE wc doe 

“No, I tell you he hasn’t done anything to me.” 

Caesar, who had remained motionless in face of Amparito’s 
father’s threatening attitude, turned on his heel, and went slowly 
out. 


244 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


THE ETERNAL GAME OF DISDAIN 


Caesar went back to the hotel, thinking very hard. Alzu- 
garay asked him what the matter was, and Caesar told his 
friend what had happened in the gallery. On hearing the story 
Alzugaray assumed a look of deep desolation. 

“J don’t understand what is the matter with the girl, for her 
to show such antipathy for me,” Caesar concluded. 

“Tt is very simple,” said Alzugaray, sadly; “the girl is in- 
terested in you. The eternal game of disdain has produced 
its effect. She has seen you show yourself indifferent toward 
her, speak curtly to her, and she has gone on thinking more 
and more about you, and now she thinks of nothing else. That 
is what has happened.” 

“Bah! I don’t believe it. You act as if this were in a 
novel.” 

“Tt’s no novel. It’s the truth.” 

The next day, when Caesar got up, the maid handed him two 
letters. One was from Don Calixto and said that Sefior 
Peribafiez accepted him as candidate. It had been learned that 
the Duke of Castro Duro had married his landlady in England; 
the arrangement with the Cuban gentleman was impossible, and 
the poor Duke would definitely have to winter in Paris, in the 
prison, along with the distinguished apaches, Bibi de Mont- 
martre and the Panther of the Batignolles. 

The other letter was from Amparito. 

Don Calixto’s niece told him he mustn’t believe that she 
hated him; if she had said anything to him, it was without 
bad intention; she would be very happy if all his projects were 
realized. 

Despite his ambitious plans and the desire he had that the 
question of his candidacy should be definitely settled, Ampa- 
rito’s letter interested him much more than Don Calixto’s. 

A new, disturbing element was coming into his life, without 
any warning and without any reason. He said nothing about 
Amparito’s letter to his friend Alzugaray. He felt him to be 
a rival, and in spite of having no intentions of going further, 


A TRYING SCENE 245 


the idea of rivalry between them troubled him. He did not 
wish to offend him by taking the attitude of a lucky man. 

He went out into the street and set off for a walk on the 
highway. 

“It is strange,” he thought, “ this coarse psychology, which 
proves that a man and a woman, especially a woman, are not 
complex beings, but stupidly simple. The complex thing in a 
woman is not the intelligence or the soul, but instinct. Why 
does a woman rebuff a man who pleases her? For the same 
reason that the female animal repulses the male, and at the 
same time calls him to her. 

“And this instinctive love, this mixture of hatred and at- 
traction, is the curious thing, the enigmatic thing about human 
nature. The intellect of each individual is, by contrast, so 
poor, so clear! 

“This girl, rich and attractive, flattered by everybody, is 
bored in this town. She sees a man that doesn’t pay atten- 
tion to her, who is after another goal, and simply for that rea- 
son she feels offended and hunts out a way to mortify him, 
for her entertainment and for spite; and when she finds that 
she doesn’t succeed, she gets to thinking about him all the time. 

“And this spite, this wounded vanity, is changed to an ab- 
sorbing interest. Why shouldn’t that absorbing interest be 
called love? Yes, she is in love, and finds great satisfaction in 
thinking so. 

“She is not an insignificant girl, daughter of a commonplace 
gentleman; to herself, she is a romantic figure. She seems to 
be absorbed in another, and what is really the case is that she 
is absorbed in herself. How ridiculous this all is! . . . And 
this is life. Is the whole of life nothing, in reality, but ridicu- 
lous? ” 

Caesar returned home, and unknown to Alzugaray, wrote a 
letter to Amparito. He put the letter into the box, and then 
went to call on Don Calixto, and take leave of him. Don 
Calixto invited Caesar and Alzugaray to dinner the next day, 
and there were the same guests as the first time. 

The dinner was cold and ceremonious. Amparito was grave, 


246 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


like a grown person. Scarcely speaking, she replied with dis- 
creet smiles to Alzugaray’s occasional phrases, but she was not 
in a humour to tease anybody. 

The train started about the middle of the afternoon, and 
Don Calixto had arranged to have the carriage got ready, and 
to accompany the travellers to the station. 

Caesar was uneasy, thinking of the leave-taking. The mo- 
ment for saying good-bye to Amparito and her father, it seemed 
to him, would be a difficult moment. Nevertheless, everything 
went off smoothly. The father offered his hand, without 
grudge. Amparito blushed a little and said: 

“‘ We shall see each other again, Moncada? ” 

“Yes, I’m sure of it,” replied Caesar; and the two friends 
and Don Calixto took the carriage for the station. 

The two friends’ return trip to Madrid was scarcely agree- 
able. Alzugaray was offended at Caesar’s personal success 
with Amparito; Caesar understood his comrade’s mental attitude 
and didn’t know what to say or do. 

To them both the journey seemed long and unpleasant, and 
when they reached their destination, they were glad to separate. 


Vill 
THE ELECTION 


WHAT THEY SAID IN THE TOWNS 


SHORT while later the eventuality predicted by Caesar 
occurred. The Liberal ministry met a crisis, and after 


various intermediate attempts at mixed cabinets, the 
Conservatives came into power. 

Caesar had no need to insist with the Minister of the Inte- 
rior. He was one of the inevitable. He was pigeon-holed as 
an adherent, from the first moment. 

The Government had given out the decree for the dissolution 
of the Cortes in February and was preparing for the General 
Election in the middle of April. 

Caesar would have gone immediately to Castro Duro, but he 
feared that if he showed interest it would complicate the situ- 
ation. There were a lot of elements there, whose attitude it was 
not easy to foresee; Don Platén’s friends, Father Martin and 
his people, Amparito’s father, the friends of the opposing can- 
didate, Garcia Padilla. Caesar thought it better that they 
should consider him a young dandy with no further ambition 
than to give himself airs, rather than a future master of the 
town. 

He wrote to Don Calixto, and Don Calixto told him there 
was no hurry, everything was in order; it would be sufficient 
for him to appear five or six days before the election. 

Caesar was impatient to begin his task, and it occurred to 
him that he might visit the towns that made up the district, 
without saying anything to anybody or making himself known. 
The excursion commenced at the beginning of the month of 
April. He left the train at a station before Castro. He bought 

247 


248 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


a horse and went about through the towns. Nobody in the 
villages knew that there was going to be an election; such things 
made no difference to anybody. 

After the inauguration of a new Government there was a lit- 
tle revolution in each village, produced by the change of the 
town-council and by the distribution of all the jobs that were 
municipal spoils, which passed from the hands of those calling 
themselves Liberals to the hands of those calling themselves 
Conservatives. 

Caesar discovered that besides the Liberal Garcia Padilla, 
there was another candidate, protected by Father Martin La- 
fuerza; but it looked as if the Clericals were going to abandon 
him. In a town named Val de San Gil, the schoolmaster ex- 
plained to him, with some fantastic details, the politics of Don 
Calixto. The schoolmaster was a Liberal and a frank, brusque, 
intelligent man, but he formed his judgment of Don Calixto’s 
politics on the prejudices of a Republican paper in Madrid, 
which was the only one he read. 

According to him, Sefior Moncada, whom nobody knew, was 
nothing more than a figure-head for the Jesuits. Father Martin 
Lafuerza was getting possession of too much land in Castro, 
and wanted everything to belong to his monastery. The Jesuits 
had learned of this and were sending young Moncada to undo 
the Franciscan friar’s combinations and establish the reign of 
the Loyolists. 

In another place, named Villavieja, Caesar found that the 
four or five persons interested in Castrian politics were against 
him. It seemed that the Conservative candidate they wanted 
was the one protected by Father Martin, who had promised 
them results greatly to their advantage. 

In general, the people in the towns were not up on politics; 
when Caesar asked them what they thought about the different 
questions that interest a country, they shrugged their shoulders. 

In the outlying hamlets they didn’t know either who the 
king was or what his name was. 

The only way in which the trip was of service to the future 
candidate was by giving him an idea of how elections were 


THE ELECTION 249 


carried on, by teaching him who carried the returns to Don 
Calixto, and showing him which of these people could be war- 
ranted to be honourable and which were rascals. 


INDIFFERENCE IN CASTRO 


Three days before the election Caesar appeared in Castro 
and went to stay at Don Calixto’s house. Nobody knew about 
his expedition in the environs. There were no preparations 
whatever. People said they were going to change Deputies; 
but really this was of no great moment in the life of the town. 

Saturday night the party committee met in the Casino at 
seven. Caesar arrived a few minutes early; no one was there. 
He was shown into a shabby salon, lighted by an oil lamp. 

It was cold in the room, and Caesar walked about while he 
waited. On the ceiling a complete canopy of spider-webs, like 
dusty silver, trembled in every draught. 

At half-past eight the first members of the committee arrived; 
the others kept on coming lazily in. Each one had some pre- 
text to excuse his being late. 

The fact was that the matter interested nobody; the politics 
of the district were going to go on as formerly, and really it 
wasn’t worth while thinking about. Caesar was a decorative 
figure with no background. 

At nine all the members of the committee were in the Casino. 
Don Calixto made a speech which he prolonged in an alarm- 
ing manner. Caesar answered him in another speech, which 
was heard with absolute coldness. 

Then a frantic gabbling let loose; everybody wanted to talk. 
They abandoned themselves fruitfully to distinctions. “ If it is 
certain that. . . . Although it is true. . . . Not so much be- 
cause...” and they eulogized one another as orators, with 
great gravity. 

The next day, Sunday, the proclamation of the candidates 
took place. They were three: Moncada, Governmental; Garcia 
Padilla, Liberal; and San Roman, Republican. 

San Roman was the old Republican bookseller; it was sure 


250 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


beforehand that he couldn’t win, but it suited Caesar that he 
should run, so that the Workmen’s Club elements should not 
vote for the Liberal candidate. 

Two days before the election Caesar went to Cidones and 
entered the Café Espafol. 

He asked for Uncle Chinaman, and told him that he was 
the future Deputy. Uncle Chinaman recognized the young 
man with whom he had talked some months previous in his 
café, he remembered him with pleasure, and received him with 
great demonstrations. 

“Man,” Caesar said to him, “I want you to do me a 
- favour.” 

“ Only tell me.” 

“It is a question about the election.” 

“Good. Let’s hear what it is.” 

“There are several towns where Padilla’s adherents are 
ready, after the count, to change the real returns for forged 
ones. Everything is prepared for it. As I have sent people 
to their voting-places, they intend to make the change on the 
road, taking the returns from the messengers and giving them 
forged ones instead. I want twenty or thirty reliable men to 
send, four by four, to accompany the’ messengers that come with 
the returns, or else to carry them themselves.” 

“ All right, I will get them for you,” said Uncle Chinaman. 

“ How much money do you need? ” 

“Twenty dollars will do me.” 

“Take forty.” 

“ All right. Which towns are they? ” 

Caesar told him the names of the towns where he feared sub- 
stitution. Then he warned him: 

“ You will say nothing about this.” 

“ Nothing.” 

Caesar gave precise instructions to the landlord of the café, — 
and on bidding Uncle Chinaman good-bye, he told him: 
“IT know already that you are really on my side.” 

“ You believe so? ” 

“ Yes.” 


THE ELECTION 251 


On Sunday the elections began with absolute inanimation. 
In the city the Republicans were getting the majority, especially 
in the suburbs. Padilla was far behind. Nevertheless, it was 
said at the Casino that it was possible Padilla would finally 
win the election, because he might have an overwhelming ma- 
jority in five or six rural wards. 

At four in the afternoon the results in the city gave the vic- 
tory to Moncada. Next to him came San Roman, and in the 
last place Padilla. 

The returns began to come in from the villages. In all of 
them the results were similar. It was found that the official 
element voted for the Government candidate, and those who had 
been attached to the preceding town-council for the Liberal. 

At eight in the evening the returns arrived from the first vil- 
lage where Padilla expected a victory. The messenger, sur- 
rounded by four men from Cidones, was in a terrified condition. 
He handed over the returns and left. ‘The result was the same 
as in all the other rural districts. 

In one village alone, the presiding officer had been able to 
evade the vigilance of the guards sent by Caesar and Uncle 
Chinaman, and change the number of votes in the returns; but 
despite this, the election was won for Caesar. 

The next day the exact result of the election was known. It 
stood : 

Moncada, 3705. 

Garcia Padilla, 1823. 

San Roman, 750. 

When it was known that Caesar had played a trick on his 
enemies under their noses, he came into great estimation. 

The judge said: 

“TI believe you were all deceived. You supposed Don Cae- 
sar to be a sucking dove, and he is going to turn out to be a 
vulture for us.” 

Caesar listened to felicitations and accepted congratulations 
smiling, and some days later returned to Madrid. 


IX 
CAESAR AS DEPUTY 


TRIPPING THEM UP 


EOPLE who didn’t know Caesar intimately used to 
ask one another: ‘‘ What purpose could Moncada have 
had in getting elected Deputy? He never speaks, he 

takes no part in the big debates.” 

His name appeared from time to time on some committee 
about Treasury affairs; but that was all. 

His life was completely veiled; he was not seen at first nights, 
or in salons, or on the promenade; he was a man apparently 
forgotten, lost to Madrid life. Sometimes on coming out of 
the Chamber he would see Amparito in an automobile; she 
would look for him with her eyes, and smile; he would take 
his hat off ostentatiously, with a low bow. 

Among a very small number of persons Caesar had the repu- 
tation of an intelligent and dangerous man. They suspected 
him of great personal ambition. It would not have been logi- 
cal to think that this cold unexpansive man was, in his heart, 
a patriot who felt Spain’s decadence deeply and was seeking 
the means to revive her. 

“No pleasures, no middle-class satisfactions,” he thought; 
“but to live for a patriotic ideal, to shove Spain forward, and 
to form with the flesh of one’s native land a great statue which 
should be her historic monument.” 

That was his plan. In Congress Caesar kept silence; but he 
talked in the corridors, and his ironic, cold, dispassionate com- 
ments began to be quoted. 

He had formed relations with the Minister of the Treasury, a 
man who passed for famous and was a mediocrity, passed for 

252 


CAESAR AS DEPUTY 253 


honourable and was a rogue. Caesar was much in his company. 

The famous financier realized that Moncada knew far more 
than he did about monetary questions, and among his friends 
he admitted it; but he gave them to understand that Caesar 
was only a theorist, incapable of quick decision and action. 

Caesar’s friendship was a convenience to the Minister, and 
the Minister’s to Caesar. In his heart the Minister hated 
Caesar, and Caesar felt a deep contempt for the famous finan- 
cier. 

Nobody seeing them in a carriage talking affectionately to- 
gether could have imagined that there existed such an amount 
of hatred and hostility between them. 

The majority of people, with an absolute want of perspicacity, 
believed Caesar to be fascinated by the Minister’s brilliant in- 
tellect; but there were persons that understood the situation of 
the pair and who used to say: 

“Moncada has an influence over the Minister like that of 
a priest over a family.” 

And there was some truth in it. 

Caesar carried his experimental method over from the stock 
exchange into politics. He kept a note-book, in which he put 
down all data about the private lives of Ministers and Depu- 
ties, and he filed these papers after classifying them. 

Castro Duro began to be aware of Caesar’s exertions. The 
secretary of the municipality, the employés, all who were friends 
and adherents to the boss’s group that Don Platén belonged 
with, began by degrees to leave Castro. 

Those who had lost their jobs, and their protectors too, began 
to write letters and more letters to the Deputy. At first they 
believed that Caesar wasn’t interested; but they were soon able 
to understand at Castro that he was interested enough, but not in 
them. The Minister of the Treasury served him as a batter- 
ing-ram to use against the Clericals at Castro Duro. 

Don Calixto was inwardly rejoiced to see his rivals reduced 
to impotency. 

Caesar began to establish political relations with the Repub- 
lican bookseller and his friends. When he began to perceive 


254 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


that he was making headway with the Liberal and Labour ele- 
ment, he started without delay to set mines under Don Calixto’s 
terrain. The judge, who was a friend of Don Calixto’s, was 
transferred; so were some clerks of the court; and the Count of 
la Sauceda, the famous boss, was soon able to realize that his 
protégé was firing against him. 

“ T have nourished a serpent in my bosom,” said Don Calixto; 
“but I know how I can grind its head.” 

He could not have been very sure of his strength; for Don 
Calixto found himself in a position where he had to beg for 
_ quarter. Caesar conceded it, on the understanding that Don 
Calixto would not take any more part in Castro politics. 

“You people had the power and you didn’t use it very well 
for the town. Now just leave it to me.” 

In exchange for Don Calixto’s surrender, Caesar agreed to 
have his Papal title legalized. 

At the end of a year and a half Caesar had all the bosses of 
Castro in his fist. 

“‘ Suppressing the bosses in the district was easy,” Caesar 
used to say; “I managed to have one make all the others in- 
nocuous, and then I made that one, who was Don Calixto, 
innocuous and gave him a title.” 

Caesar did not forget or neglect the least detail. He listened 
to everybody that talked to him, even though they had nothing 
but nonsense to say; he always answered letters, and in his 
own handwriting. 

With the townpeople he used the tactics of knowing all their 
names, especially the old folks’, and for this purpose he carried 
a little note-book. He wrote down, for example: “ Sefior Ra- 
mon, was in the Carlist war; Uncle Juan, suffers with rheu- 
matism.” 

When, by means of his notes, he remembered these details, 
it produced an extraordinary effect on people. Everybody con- 
sidered himself the favourite. 


CAESAR AS DEPUTY 255 


CAESAR’S MANNER OF LIVING 


Caesar lived simply; he had a room in an hotel in the Carrera 
de San Jerénimo, where he received calls; but nobody ever 
found him there except in business hours. 

He used to go now and then to Alzugaray’s house, where he 
would talk over various matters with his friend’s mother and 
sister; he would find out about everything, and go away after 
giving them advice on questions of managing their money, 
which they almost always observed and followed. 

Of all people, Ignacio Alzugaray was the most incredulous 
in regard to his friend; his mother and his sister believed in 
Caesar as in an oracle. Caesar often thought that he ought 
to fall definitely in love with Ignacio’s sister and marry her; 
but neither he nor she seemed to have set upon passing the limits 
of a cordial friendship. 

Caesar told the Alzugaray family how he lived and caused 
them to laugh and wonder. 

He had rented a fairly large upper story in a street in Valle 
Hermoso, for five dollars. The days he had nothing to do he 
went there. He put on an old, worn-out fur coat, which was 
still a protection, a soft hat, took a stick, and went walking in 
the environs. ; 

His favourite walk was the neighbourhood of the Canalillo 
and of the Dehesa de Amaniel. 

Generally he went out of his house on the side opposite the 
Model Prison, then he walked toward Moncloa, and taking the 
right, passed near the Rubio Institute, and entered the Cerro del 
Pimiento by an open lot which he got into through a broken wall. 

From there one could see, far away, the Guadarrama range, 
like a curtain of blue mountains and snowy crests; on clear 
days, the Escorial; Aravaca, the Casa de Campo, and the Sierra 
de Gredos, which ran out on the left hand like a promontory. 
Nearby one saw a pine grove, close to the Rubio Institute, and 
a valley containing market-gardens, and the ranges of the Mon- 
cloa shooting-school. © 

Caesar would walk on by the winding road, and stop to look 


256 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


at the Cemetery of San Martin on the right, with its black 
cypresses and its yellowish walls. 

Then he would follow the twists of the Canalillo, and pass 
in front of the third Reservoir, to the Amaniel road. 

That was where Caesar would have built himself a house, 
had he had the idea of living retired. 

The dry, hard landscape was the kind he liked. The morn- 
ings were wonderful, the blue sky radiant, the air limpid and 
thin. 

The twilight had an extraordinary enchantment. All that 
vast extent of land, the mountains, the hills of the Casa de 
Campo, the cypresses of the cemetery, were bathed in a violet 
light. 

In winter there were hunters of yellow-hammers and gold- 
finches in these regions, who set their nets and their decoys on 
the ground, and spent hours and hours watching for their game. 

On Sunday, in particular, the number of hunters was very 
large. They went in squads of three; one carried a big bundle 
on his shoulder, which was the net all rolled up; another the 
decoy cages, fastened with a strap; and the third a frying-pan, 
a skin of wine, and some kindling for a fire. 

Caesar used to talk with the guards at Amaniel, with the 
octroi-officers, and he got to be great friends with a little hunch- 
back, a bird hunter. 

It was curious to hear this hunchback talk of the habits of 
the birds and of the influence of the winds. He knew how the 
gold-finches, yellow-hammers, and linnets make their nests, and 
the preference some of them have for coltsfoot cotton, and others 
for wool or for cow’s hair. He told Caesar a lot of things, 
many of which could have existed only in his imagination, but 
which were entertaining. 


ONE DAY AT CHRISTMASTIME 


One day at Christmastime Alzugaray went in the morning 
to look for Caesar. He knew where to find him and walked 
direct to the Calle de Galileo. 


CAESAR AS DEPUTY 257 


At the house, they told him that Caesar was eating in a tavern 
close at hand. 

Alzugaray went into the place and found his friend the 
Deputy seated in a corner eating. He had the appearance of 
a superior workman, an electrician, carver, or something of the 
sort. 

“If people find out you behave so extravagantly, they will 
think you are crazy,” said Alzugaray. 

““Pshaw! Nobody comes here,” replied Caesar. ‘“ The po- 
litical world and this are separate worlds. This one belongs 
to the people who have to shoulder the load of everything, and 
the other is a world of villains, robbers, idiots, and fools. 
Really, it is difficult to find anything so vile, so inept, and so 
useless as a Spanish politician. The Spanish middle class is 
a warren of rogues and villains. I feel an enormous repugnance 
to brushing against it. That is why I came here now and then 
to talk to these people; not because these are good, no; the first 
and the last of them are riff-raff, but at least they say what 
they mean and they blaspheme naively.” 

“What are you going to do after lunch?” Alzugaray asked 
him. ‘“ Have you got a sweetheart in one of the old-clothes 
shops of the quarter? ” 

“No. I was thinking of taking a walk; that’s all.” 

“Then come along.” 

They left the tavern and went along a street between sides of 
sand cut straight down, and started up the Cerro del Pimiento. 
The soft, vague mist allowed the Guadarrama to stand out 
visible. 

“This landscape enchants me,” said Caesar. 

“It seems hard and gloomy,” responded Alzugaray. 

“ Yes, that is true; hard and gloomy, but noble. When one 
is drenched with a miserable political life, when one actually 
forms a part of that Olympus of madmen called Congress, one 
needs to be purified. How miserable, how vile that political 
life is! How many faces pale with envy there are! What low 
and repugnant hatreds! When I come out nauseated by seeing 
those people; when I am soaked with repugnance, then I come 


258 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


out here to walk, I look at those serious mountains, so frown- 
ing and strong, and the mere sight of them seems like a puri- 
fying flame which cleanses me from meanness.” 

“I see that you are as absurd as ever, Caesar. It would 
never occur to anybody to come and comfort himself with 
some melancholy mountains, out here between an abandoned 
hospital, which looks like a leper-asylum, and a deserted ceme- 
tery.” 

“Well, these mountains give me an impression of energy 
and nobility, which raises my spirits. This leper-asylum, as 
you call it, sunken in a pit, this deserted cemetery, those dis- 
tant mountains, are my friends; I imagine they are saying to 
me: ‘ One must be hard, one must be strong like us, one must . 
live in solitude... .’” 

They did not continue their walk much further, because the 
night and the fog combined made it difficult to see the path 
along the Canalillo, which made it possible to fall in, and that 
would have been disagreeable. 

They returned the way they had come. From the top of a 
hill they saw Madrid in the twilight, covered with fog; and in 
the streets newly opened between the sides of sand, the lights 
of the gas-lamps sparkled in a nimbus of rainbow. .. . 


x 
POLITICAL LABOURS 


MONEY ON THE EXCHANGE 


LTHOUGH Caesar did not distinguish himself espe- 
cially in Congress, he worked hard. His activities 


were devoted mainly to two points: the stock exchange 
and Castro Duro. 

Caesar had found a partner to play the market for him, a 
Bilboan capitalist, whom he had convinced of the correctness 
of his system. Sefior Salazar had deposited, in Caesar’s name, 
thirty thousand dollars. With this sum Caesar played for 
millions and he was drawing an extraordinary dividend from 
his stocks. , 

Their operations were made in the name of Aizugaray, whose 
job it was to go every month to see the broker, and to sign and 
collect the certificates. Caesar gave his orders by telephone, 
and Alzugaray communicated them to the broker. 

Alzugaray often went to see Caesar and said to him: 

“The broker came to my house terrified, to tell me that what 
‘we are going to do is an absurdity.” 

“Let it alone,” Caesar would say. ‘“‘ You know our agree- 
ment. You get ten percent of the profits for giving the orders. 
Do not mix in any further.” 

Often, on seeing the positive result of Caesar’s speculations, 
Alzugaray would ask him: 

“ Do you find out at the Ministry what is going to happen? ” 

“ Pshaw! ” Caesar would say; “the market is not a ca- 
pricious thing, as you think. There are signs. I pay atten- 
tion to a lot of facts, which give me indications: coupons, the 
amount shares advance, the calculation of probabilities; and I 

259 


260 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


compare all these scientific data with empirical observations 
that are difficult to explain. In such a situation, events are 
what make the least difference to me. Is there going to be a 
revolution or a Carlist war? . . . I am careless about it.” 

“ But this is impossible,” Alzugaray used to say. ‘ Excuse 
me for saying so, but I don’t believe you. You have some 
secret, and tnat is what helps you.” 

“ How fantastic you all are!” Caesar would exclaim; “ you 
refuse to believe in the rational, and still you believe in the 
miraculous.” 

“No, I do not believe in the miraculous; but I cannot ex- 
plain your methods.” 

“That’s clear! Am I to explain them to you! When you 
don’t know the mechanism of the market! I am certain that 
you have never considered the mechanism of the rise produced 
by the reintegration of the coupon, or the way that rise is lim- 
ited to double its value. Tell me. Do you know what that 
means? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Well, then, how are you to understand anything? ” 

* All right, then; explain it to me.” 

“ There’s no difficulty. You know that the natural tendency 
of the market is to rise.” 

“To rise and to fall,” interrupted Alzugaray. 

“No, only to rise.” 

“ I don’t see it.” 

“The general tendency of the market is to rise, because hay- 
ing to fall eighty centimos, the value of the coupon, every 
quarter, if the market didn’t rise to offset that loss, shares 
would reach zero... .” 

“I don’t understand,” said Alzugaray. 

“Imagine a man on a stairway; if you oblige him to go 
down one step every so often, in order to keep in the same 
place as before he will necessarily have to go up again, be- 
cause if he didn’t do so, he would be constantly approaching 
the front door.” 

“ Yes, surely.” 


POLITICAL LABOURS 261 


“Well, this man on the stairway is the quotation, and the 
mechanical task of constantly making up for the quarterly loss 
is what is called the reintegration of the coupon.” 

“ You do not convince me.” 

Alzugaray didn’t like listening to these explanations. He 
had formed an opinion that had not much foundation, but he 
would not admit that Caesar, by reasoning, could arrive at the 
glimmering of an inductive and deductive method, where others 
saw no more than chance. 


CAESAR BEGINS HIS TASK 


With the money he made on the market, Caesar was making 
himself the master of Castro Duro. He constantly assumed a 
more Liberal attitude in the Chamber, and was in a position 
to abandon the Conservative majority, on any pretext, 

His plan of campaign at Castro Duro corresponded to this 
political position of his: he had rehabilitated the Workmen’s 
Club and paid its debts. The Club had been founded by the 
workmen of a thread factory, now shut. The number of mem- 
bers was very small and the labourers and employés of the 
railway and some weavers were its principal support. 

On learning that it was about to be closed for lack of funds, 
Caesar promised to support it. He thought of endowing the 
Club with a library, and installing a school in the country. 
On seeing that the Deputy was patronizing the Club, a lot 
of labourers of all kinds joined it. A new governing board 
was named, of which Caesar was honourary president, and the 
Workmen’s Club re-arose from its ashes. The Republicans and 
the little group of Socialists, almost all weavers, were on Cae- 
sar’s side and promised to vote for him in the coming election. 
_ Various Republicans who went to Madrid to call on Caesar, 
told him he ought to come out as a Republican. They would 
vote for him with enthusiasm. 

“No; why should I?” Caesar used to answer. “Are we 
going to do any more at Castro by my being a Republican than 
when I am not one? Besides the fact that I should not be 
elected on that ticket and should thus have no further influ- 


262 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


ence, to me the forms of a government are indifferent; I don’t 
even care whether it has a true ideal or a false one. What I 
do want is for the town to progress; whether by means of a 
dream or by means of a reality. A politician should seek 
for efficiency before asking anything else, and at present the 
Republican dream would not be efficient at Castro.” 

Most of the Republicans did not go away very well satisfied 
with what Caesar had said; and after leaving him, they would 
say: 

“He is a very curious person, but he favours us and we'll 
have to follow him.” 

The reopening of the Workmen’s Club in Castro was the 
chance for an event. Caesar was in favour of inaugurating the 
Club without any celebration, without attracting the atten- 
tion of the Clericals; but the members of the Club, on the 
contrary, wished to give the reactionaries a dose to swallow, and 
Caesar could not but promise his participation in the inaugura- 
tion. 

“ Would you like to come to Castro?” Caesar said to Alzu- 
garay. 

“ What are you going to do there? ” 

“We are going to open a Club.” 

“ Are you going to speak? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ All right. Let’s go, so that I can hear you. Probably you 
will do it badly enough.” 

“ It’s possible.” 

“ And what you say won’t please anybody.” 

“ That’s possible, too. But that makes no difference. You 
will come? ” 

“Yes. Will there be picturesque speakers? ” 

“There are some, but they are not going to speak. There 
is one, Uncle Chinaman, who is a marvel. In describing the 
actual condition of Spain, he once uttered this authoritative 
phrase: ‘Clericalism in the zenith, immorality in high places, 
the debt floating more every day... .’” 

“ That’s very good.” 


POLITICAL LABOURS 263 


“Tt certainly is. He made another happy phrase, criticizing 
the Spanish administration. ‘For what reason do they write 
so many useless papers?’ he said. ‘So that rats, the obscene 
reptiles, can go on eating them..... dag 

“ That’s very good too.” 

“He is a man without any education, but very intelligent. 
So you. are going to come? ” 

“ Yes.”’ 

“Then we will meet at the station.” 


CAN ONE CHANGE OR NOT? 


They took the train at night and they chatted as they went 
along in it. Caesar explained to Alzugaray the difficulties he 
had had to overcome in order that the Workmen’s Club could 
be reinstituted, and went on detailing his projects for the 
future. 

“Do you believe the town is going to be transformed? ” asked 
Alzugaray. 

“ Yes, certainly! ” said Caesar, staring at his friend. 

‘So then, you, a Darwinist who hold it as a scientific doc- 
trine that only the slow. action of environment can transform 
species and individuals, believe that a poor worn-out, jog- 
trotting race is going to revive suddenly, in a few years! Can 
a Darwinist believe in a revolutionizing miracle? ” 

“ Previously, no; but now he can.” 

“My dear fellow! How so?” 

“ Haven’t you read anything about the experiments of the 
Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries? ” 

“ No.” 

“Well, his experiments have proved that there are certain 
vegetable species which, all at once, without any preparation, 
without anything to make you expect it, change type absolutely 
and take on other characters.” 

“The devil! That really is extraordinary.” 

“Vries verified this rapid transformation first in a plant. 
named (Enotheria Lamarckiana, which, all of a sudden, with 


264 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


no influence from the environment, with nothing to justify it, 
at times changes and metamorphosizes itself into a different 
plant.” 

“ But this transformation may be due to a disease,” said 
Alzugaray. 

“No, because the mutation, after taking place, persists from 
generation to generation, not with pathological characteristics, 
but with completely normal ones.” 

“Tt is most curious.” 

“These experiments have produced Neo-Darwinism. The 
Neo-Darwinists, with Hugo de Vries at their head, believe that 
species are not generally gradually transformed, but that they 
produce new forms in a sudden, brusque way, having children 
different from the fathers. And if such brusque variations 
can take place in a characteristic so fixed as physiological form, 
what may not happen in a thing so unstable as the manner of 
thinking? Thus, it is very possible that the men of the Italian 
Renaissance or the French Revolution were mentally distinct 
from their predecessors and their successors, and they may even 
have been organically distinct.” 

“ But this overthrows the whole doctrine of evolution,” said 
Alzugaray. 

“No. The only thing it has done is to distinguish two forms 
of change: one, the slow variation already verified by every- 
body, the other the brusque variation pointed out by Hugo de 
Vries. We see now that the impulses, which in politics are 
called evolution and revolution, are only reflexions of Nature’s 
movements.” 

“So then, we may hope that Castro Duro will change into 
an Athens?” asked Alzugaray. 

“We may hope so,” said Caesar. 

“ All right, let’s hope sleeping.” 

They ordered the porter to prepare two berths in the car, and 
they both lay down. 


THE RECEPTION 
In the morning Caesar went to the dressing-room, and a short 


POLITICAL LABOURS 265 


while later came back clean and dressed up as if he were at a 
ball. 

“ How spruce you are! ” Alzugaray said to him. 

“Yes, that’s. because they will come to receive me at the 
station.” 

“ Honestly? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“Ha...ha...ha...!” laughed Alzugaray. 

“ What are you laughing at?” asked Caesar, smiling. 

“ At your having arranged a reception and brought me along 
for a witness.” 

“No, man, no,” said Caesar; “I have arranged nothing. 
The workmen of the Club will come down out of gratitude.” 

“ Ah, that’s it! Then there will be only a few.” 

At this juncture the car door opened and a man in the dirty © 
clothes of a mechanic appeared. 

“ Don Caesar Moncada? ” he inquired. 

“What is it? ” said Caesar. 

“T belong to the Castro Workmen’s Club and I have come to 
welcome you ahead of anybody else,” and he held out his hand. 
“ Greetings! ” 

“Greetings! Regards to the comrades,” said Caesar, shak- 
ing his hand. 

“Damn it, what enthusiasm! ” murmured Alzugaray. 

The employee disappeared. On arriving at the station, Alzu- 
garay looked out the window and saw with astonishment that 
the platform was full of people. 

As the car entered the covered area of the station, noisy ap- 
plause broke out. Caesar opened the door and took off his hat 
courteously. 

“ Hurrah for Moncada! Hurrah for the Deputy from Cas- 
tro! Hurrah for liberty! ” they heard the shouts. 

Caesar got out of the car, followed by Alzugaray, and found 
himself surrounded by a lot of people. There were some work- 
men and peasants, but the majority were comfortable citizens. 

They all crowded around to grasp his hand. 

Surrounded by this multitude, they left the station. There 


» 


266 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


Caesar took leave of all his acquaintances and got into a car- 
riage with Alzugaray, while hurrahs and applauses resounded. 
“Eh? What did you think of the reception? ” asked Caesar. 
** Magnificent, my boy! ” 
“ You can’t say I behaved like a demagogue.” 
“ On the contrary, you were too distant.” 
“ They know I am like that and it doesn’t astonish them.” 
Caesar had a rented house in Castro and the two friends went 
to it. All morning and part of the afternoon committees kept 
coming from the villages, who wanted to talk with Caesar and 
consult him about the affairs of their respective municipalities. 


INAUGURATION OF THE CLUB 


In the evening the Workmen’s Club was inaugurated. No- 
body in Castro talked of anything else. The Clerical element 
had advised all religious persons to stay away from the meeting. 

The large hall of the Club was profusely lighted; and by 
half-past six was already completely full. 

At seven the ceremony began. The president of the Club, 
a printer, spoke, and told of Caesar’s benefactions; then the 
Republican bookseller, San Roman, give a discourse; and after 
him Caesar took up the tale. 

He explained his position in the Chamber in detail. The 
people listened with some astonishment, doubtless wishing to 
find an opportune occasion for applause, and not finding it. 

Some of the old men put their hands to their ears, like a 
shell, so as to hear better. 

Next, Caesar spoke about life in Castro, and pointed out the 
town’s needs. 

“ You have here,” he said, “ three fundamental problems, as 
is the case with almost all towns in the interior of Spain. 
First: water. You have neither good drinking water, nor 
enough water for irrigation. For want of drinkable water, 
the mortality of Castro is high; for want of irrigation, you can- 
not cultivate more than a very small zone, under good condi- 
tions. For that reason water must be brought here, and an 


POLITICAL LABOURS 267 


irrigation canal begun. Second problem: subsistence. Here, 
as in the whole of Castile, there are people who corner the 
grain market and raise the price of wheat, and people who 
corner the necessities of life and put up their prices as high 
as they feel like. To prevent this, it is necessary for the Mu- 
nicipality to establish a public granary which shall regulate 
prices. For want of that, the people are condemned to hunger, 
and people that do not eat can neither work nor be free. Third 
problem: means of transport. You have the railway here, but 
you have neither good highways nor good byways, and trans- 
portation is most difficult. I, for my part, will do all I can to 
keep the federal government from neglecting this region, but we 
must also stir up the little municipalities to take care of their 
roads. 

“ These three are questions that must be settled as soon as 
possible. 

“ Water, subsistence, transportation; those are not matters of 
luxury, but of necessity, matters of life. They belong to what 
may be called the politics of bread. 

“TI cannot make the reforms alone; first, because I have not 
the means; next, because even supposing I had, if I must leave 
these improvements in a township that would not look after 
them, not take care of them, they would soon disappear; they 
would be like the canals dug by the Moors and afterwards al- 
lowed to fill up through the neglect of the Christians. That is 
what politics are needed for, to convince reactionaries. 

“ At the same time, looking toward the future, let us start the 
school, which I should like to see not merely a primary school, 
but also a school for working-men. 

“ Let us endeavour, too, to turn the field of San Roque into 
a park,” 

After explaining his program, Caesar called on all progres- 
sive men who had liberal ideas and loved their city, to col- 
laborate in his work. 

When he ended his speech, all the audience applauded vio- 
lently. Alzugaray was able to verify the fact that the major- 
ity of them had not understood what Caesar was saying. 


268 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“They didn’t understand anything. A few sparkling 
phrases would have pleased them much better.” 

“Ah, of course. But that makes no difference,” replied 
Caesar. ‘“ They will get used to it.” 

The inauguration over, the bookseller, San Roman, Dr. 
Ortigosa, Sefior Camacho, who was the pharmacist that called 
himself an inventor of explosives, and some others, met in the 
office of the Club, and talked with great enthusiasm of the 
transformation that was obviously taking place at Castro. 


XI 
THE PITFALL OF SINIGAGLIA 


A COMMISSION FOR THE MINISTER 


FEW days later, during Carnival, the Minister of the 
Treasury presented himself at Caesar’s hotel. The fa- 


mous financier was a trifle nervous. 

“Come along with me,” he said. 

** Come on.” 

They got into a motor, and the Minister suddenly asked: 

“Could you go to Paris immediately? ” 

“‘'There’s nothing to prevent. What is it to do?” 

“You know that the great financier Dupont de Sarthe is 
studying out a plan for restoring the value of the currency of 
Spain.” 

“ Yes.” 

“Well, today the Speaker asked me several times if it was 
ready. It is necessary for me to introduce it soon, as soon as 
possible, and along with the plan for restoring the currency, 
one for the suppression of the government tax.” 

“The Speaker wishes to have these plans introduced? ” 

“Yes, he wishes them introduced at once.” 

“That indicates that the Conservative situation is very 
strong,” said Caesar. 

“ Obviously.” 

“ And what do you want me to do? ” 

“Go to Dupont de Sarthe and have him explain his scheme 
clearly, and tell you the difficulties; if he has an outline of it, 
have him give it to you; if not, have him give you his notes.” 

“ All right. Shall I go tonight? ” 

“If you can, it would be the best thing.” 

269 


270 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“ There’s nothing to prevent. Take me back to the hotel and 
I will pack.” 

The Minister told the chauffeur to go back to Caesar’s house. 

“ As soon as you arrive, let me know by wire, and write to 
me explaining the scheme in the greatest possible detail.” 

“ Very good.” 

“ You will need money; I don’t know if I have any here,” 
said the Minister, feeling for his pocket-book. 

“T have enough for the trip,” replied Caesar. “ But, as I 
might need some in Paris, it would not be a bad idea for you 
to open an account for me at a bank there, or else to give me a 
cheque.” 

The Minister vacillated, then went into the hotel writing- 
room and signed a cheque on a Parisian banker in the Rue de 
Provence, which he handed to Caesar. 

“See you on your return,” he said. 

** Good-bye.” 

Caesar called a servant and bade him: 

“Telephone to my friend Alzugaray. You know his num- 
ber. Tell him to be here inside an hour.” 

“Very good, sir.” 

This arranged, Caesar went to the main door and saw that 
the Minister’s motor was headed for down town. Immediately 
he took a carriage and went to the Chamber. The undersecre- 
tary of the Speaker was a friend of his; sometimes he gave 
him advice about playing the market. 

Caesar looked him up, and when he found him, said: 

“How are we getting on?” 

“ All right, man,” replied the undersecretary. 

“Come over here, so I can see you in the light,” said Caesar, 
and taking him by the hand, he looked into his eyes. 

“It’s true,” said the undersecretary, laughing, “ that the situ- 
ation is not very strong.” 

“ What is the danger? ” 

“The only danger is your friend, the famous financier. He 
is the one who could play us a dirty trick.” 

“Do you suspect what it could be?” 


THE PITFALL OF SINIGAGLIA 271 


“No. Not clearly. You must know better than any one 
else.” 

“ T have just seen the Minister, and he gave me the impres- 
sion of being satisfied.” 

“Then everything is all right. But I haven’t much confi- 
dence.” 

Caesar left the undersecretary, went out of the Chamber, and 
returned home in the carriage. Alzugaray was waiting in the 
entry for him. 

Caesar called to him from the carriage: 

“T am going to Paris,” he told him, “ to spend a few days.” 

“ Good.”’ 

“‘T must draw out what money I have in the Bank.” 

“Let’s go there now.” 

They went to the Bank, to the paying teller, and Caesar drew 
out twenty thousand pesetas of his few months’ winnings on 
the market. 

“ You are not going to play at all, this month? ” asked Alzu- 
garay. 

“No, not this month.” 

They left the Bank. 

“TI will wire you my address in Paris,” said Caesar. 

“Very good. And nothing is to be done? ” 

“No. That is to say, my partner and I are not going to 
play. Nevertheless, I am going to leave you two thousand 
pesetas, and if you think well, you can use it as you choose.” 

“ All right,” said Alzugaray, pleased at Caesar’s confidence 
in his talents for speculation. 

“In case I need any information which had best not be 
public,” Caesar went on, “I will wire you in code. Do you 
know the Aran code? ” 

“ No.” 

“T will give it to you, directly, at my house. If you receive 
a telegram from me from Paris, beginning with your name: 
‘ Ignacio, do thus or so,’ you will know it is in the code.” 

“T follow you. What’s up?” 

“An affair the Minister is putting through, which we will 


272 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


not let him pull off without getting our share out of him. I will 
explain it to you, when I come back.” 

“ How long do you expect to be there? ” 

“Two weeks at most; but perhaps I'll come right back.” 


INDUCTION 


On arriving at the train, Caesar bought all the evening pa- 
pers. In one of them he found an article entitled: The Pro- 
jects of the Minister of Finance, and he read it carefully. 

The writer said that the Minister of Finance had never been 
so closely identified with the Conservative Cabinet as at that 
moment; that he had plans for a number of projects for the 
salvation of the Spanish Treasury, which he would briefly ex- 
plain. 

“It’s a witty joke,” thought Caesar. 

He was too well acquainted with the market and monetary 
affairs in general, too well acquainted with the sterling worth 
of the famous financier not to understand the idea of his scheme. 

Caesar knew that the Minister not only was not on good 
terms with his colleagues in the Government, but was at sword’s 
points with them, and was moreover disposed to give up his 
portfolio from one day to the next. 

Whence came this haste to launch the plan for the suppres- 
sion of the government tax and restoring the value of the cur- 
rency? Why did he send him, Caesar, on this errand, and not 
somebody in the Department? 

His haste to launch the plan was easy to comprehend. 

The Minister was about to give a decisive impulse to all 
stocks; the suppression of the affidavit and the restoring the 
value of the currency would shove up domestic paper in Spain 
and foreign stocks in France to extraordinary heights. Then 
a difficulty with the Speaker, a moment of anger, such as was 
to be expected in a character like the Minister’s, would oblige 
him to offer his resignation . . . prices would take a terrible 
drop, and the Minister, having already planned for a big bear 
scoop in Paris, would clear some hundreds of thousands of 


THE PITFALL OF SINIGAGLIA 273 


francs and keep his reputation as a patriot and an excellent 
financier. 

Why was he sending Caesar? No doubt because he suspected 
his secretary, whom he had probably given similar missions to 
previously. 

Caesar knew the Minister well. He had described him in 
his notes in these words: “He is dark and brachicephalic; a 
man of tradition and good common sense; average intellect, 
astute, a good father and a good Catholic. He believes himself 
cleverer than he really is. His two leading passions are vanity 
and money.” 

Caesar knew the Minister, but the Minister did not know 
Caesar. He imagined him to be a man of brilliant intellect, 
but incapable of grasping realities. 

After thinking a long while over the business, while he was 
undressing to go to bed in the sleeping-car, Caesar said: 

“There is only one thing to find out. Who is the Minister’s 
broker in Paris, and who is his banker? With Yarza’s assist- 
ance that is not going to be difficult for me to ascertain. When 
we know what broker he works through and what banker, the 
affair is finished.” 

Having concluded thus, he ae into his berth, put out the light, 
and lay there dozing. 


IN PARIS 


On arriving at Paris next evening, he left his luggage in the 
hotel at the Quai d’Orsay station. He wired his address to the 
Minister and to Alzugaray, and went out at once to look for 
Carlos Yarza. He was unable to find him until very late at 
night. He explained to his friend what had brought him, and 
Yarza told him he was at his disposition. 

“When you need me, let me know.” 

‘cc Good.” 

Caesar went off to bed, and the next morning he proceeded 
to the banking-house in the Rue de Provence where he was to 
cash the cheque handed him by the Minister of the Treasury. 

He entered the bank and asked for the president. A clerk 


274 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


came out and Caesar explained to him that on arriving at his 
hotel he had missed a cheque for three thousand francs from 
the Spanish Minister of Finance. He introduced himself as a 
Deputy, as an intimate friend of the Minister’s, and behaved as 
if much vexed. The department manager told him that they 
could do no more than take the number and not pay the cheque 
if anybody presented it for payment. 

“You don’t handle the Minister’s business here?” asked 
Caesar. 

“No, only very rarely,” said the manager. 

“You don’t know who his regular banker is? ” 

“No; I will ask, because it is very possible that the chief 
may know.” 

The clerk went out and came back a little later, informing 
Caesar that they said the house the Spanish Minister of Finance 
did his banking with was Recquillart and Company, Rue 
Bergére. 

The street was near at hand, and it took Caesar only a very 
little while to get there. The building was dark, lighted by 
electricity even in the daytime, one of those classic corners where 
Jewish usurers amass great fortunes. 

There was no question of employing the same ruse as in the 
Rue de Provence, and Caesar thought of another. 

He asked for M. Recquillart, and out came a heavy gentle- 
man, a blond going grey, with a rosy cranium and gold eye- 
glasses. 

Caesar told him he was secretary to a rich Spanish miner, 
who was then in Paris. That gentleman wanted to try some 
business on the Bourse, but was unable to come to the bank 
because he was ill of the dropsy. 

“Who recommended our house to this gentleman?” asked 
the banker. 

“ T think it was the Minister of Finance, in Spain.” 

“ Ah, yes, very good, very good! And how are we to com- 
municate with him? .Through you? ” 

“No. He told me he would prefer to have a clerk who 
knows Spanish come to him and take his orders,” 


THE PITFALL OF SINIGAGLIA 275 


“That is all right; one shall go. We happen to have a 
Spanish clerk. At what hour shall he come? ” said M. Recquil- 
lart, taking out a pencil. 

“ At nine in the evening.” 

“ For whom shall he ask? ” 

“ For Sefior Pérez Cuesta.” 

“ At what hotel? ” 

“ The one in the Quai d’Orsay station.” 

“Very good indeed.” 

Caesar bowed; and after he had sent Yarza a telephone mes- 
sage, making an appointment for after the Bourse at the Café 
Riche, he took an automobile and went to hunt for the great 
financier Dupont de Sarthe, who lived on the other bank of the 
Seine, near the Montparnasse station. 

He had a large, sumptuous office, with an enormous library. 
Two secretaries were at work at small tables placed in front of 
the balconies, and the master wrote at a big Ministerial table 
full of books. When Caesar introduced himself, the great 
economist rose, offered his hand, and in a sharp voice with a 
Parisian accent, asked what he desired. 

Caesar told him the Minister’s request, and the great econ- 
omist became indignant. 

‘Does that gentleman imagine that I am at his bidding, to 
begin a piece of work and stop it according as it suits him, 
and take it up again when he orders? No, tell him no. Tell 
him the scheme he asked me for is not done, not finished; that 
I cannot give him any data or any information at all.” 

In view of the great man’s indignation, Caesar made no reply, 
but left the house. He lunched at his hotel, gave orders that 
if any one brought a letter or message for Seflor Pérez Cuesta 
they should receive it, and went again to the Rue de Provence, 
where he said he had had the good luck to find his cheque. 

With all these goings and comings it got to be three o’clock, 
and Caesar turned his steps toward the Café Riche. Yarza 
was there and the two talked a long while. Yarza knew of the 
manceuvres of the Minister of Finance, and he gave his opinion 
about them with great knowledge of the business questions. He 


276 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


also knew Recquillart’s clerk, the Catalan Pujol, of whom he 
had not a very good opinion. 

The two friends made an engagement for the next day and 
Caesar hurried to his hotel. He wrote to the Minister, telling 
him what the fundamentals of Dupont de Sarthe’s project were; 
and between his own ideas and those Yarza had expounded to 
him, he was able to draw up a complete enough plan. 

“The Minister being a man who knows nothing about all 
this,” thought Caesar, ‘‘ when he understands that the ideas I 
expound are those of the celebrated Dupont de Sarthe, will find 
them wonderful.” 


RECQUILLART’S CLERK 


After having written his letter and taken a little tea, he lay 
stretched out on a divan, until they brought him word that a 
young man was asking for Sefior Pérez Cuesta. 

“Send him up.” 

Sefior Puchol entered, a dark little man who wore a morning- 
coat and had a hat with a flat brim edged with braid. 

Caesar greeted him affably and made him sit down. 

“ But are you not Spanish? ” Caesar asked him. 

“ Yes, I was born in Barcelona.” 

“T should have taken you for a Frenchman.” 

“In dress and everything else, I am a complete Parisian.” 

“This poor man is full of vanity,” thought Caesar. “ All 
the better.” He immediately began to explain the affair. 

“ Look,” he said, “the whole matter is this: the Spanish 
Minister of Finance, my chief, has dealings on a large scale with 
the_Recquillart bank; you know that, and so do I; but the 
Recquillarts, besides charging an inflated commission, interfere 
in his buying and selling with so little cleverness, that when- 
ever he buys, it turns out that he bought for more than the mar- 
ket price of the security, and whenever he sells, he sells lower 
than the quotation. The Minister does not wish to break off 
with the Recquillarts. . . .” 

“He can’t, you meant to say,” replied Puchol, in an insinu- 
ating manner. 


THE PITFALL OF SINIGAGLIA 277 


“Since you know the situation . . .” responded Caesar. 

“ Oughtn’t I to?” 

“ Since you know the whole situation,” continued Caesar, “ I 
will say that he cannot indeed break off with the Recquillarts, 
but the Minister would like to do business with somebody else, 
without passing under the yoke of the chief.” 

“ He ought to make arrangements with another broker here,” 
said Puchol. 

“ Ah, certainly. I have brought some twenty thousand francs 
with that object.” 

“ Then there is no difficulty.” 

“ But we need a go-between. The Minister doesn’t care to 
turn to the first banker at hand and explain all his combinations 
to him.” 

“That’s where I come in.” 

“Good, but we must know beforehand how much you are to 
get. Your demands may be such that it would be better for him 
to stick to the Recquillarts.” 

“ Recquillart gets ten percent of the profits, besides a small 
commission as broker. I will take five.” 

“It’s a good deal.” 

“I will not accept less; the arrangement might cost me my 
career. Consult him... .” 

“If I could consult him! The truth is that there may not 
be time. We will accept five.” 

“What does the Minister wish to speculate in? The same 
things as with Recquillart? Foreign Loans and North- 
erns?” 

“ Exactly. Just as before.” 

“ All right. The investment, as you can see, is safe,” Puchol 
continued. ‘ I would put my fortune in it, if Ihad one. There 
are a lot of ReReLapess bought; all the financial reviews are 
predicting a rise.’ 

The clerk took out a folded review and handed it to Caesar, 
who read: 

“We are assured that the plan of the Spanish Minister of 
Finance must make foreign securities rise considerably. North- 


278 ~ CAESAR OR NOTHING 


erns will follow the same path, and there are indications that 
their rise will be very rapid and will cover several points.” 

“The field is going to be covered with corpses,” said Caesar. 

Sefior Puchol burst out laughing; Caesar invited him to dine 
with him, and gave him a sumptuous dinner with good wines. 

Puchol was absolutely vain, and he boasted of his triumphs 
on the Bourse; it was he who guided Recquillart in the dealings 
he had with Spaniards, in which they had plucked various in- 
cautious persons. 

“* How much will the Minister’s operation amount to? ” Cae- 
‘sar asked him. 

“ Nobody can prevent his making three hundred thousand, at 
the least. With the increase he has ordered you to make, it will 
come to six hundred thousand. We will gobble up the two 
points it falls.” 

“ T don’t know if there may have been some new order while 
I was in the train coming to Paris,”’ said Caesar. 

“No, his operation is all arranged,” replied Puchol, and he 
got out a note-book and consulted it. “It will be like giving 
away bread. We are going to sell ten millions of Foreigns and 
five hundred Northerns on the seventeenth, the eighteenth, and 
the twentieth.” 

“ And the scoop will take place? ” asked Caesar. 

“On the 27th.” 

“So that on those days we shall sell just as much again? ” 

“ And we shall sell much dearer.” 

They dropped that point and talked of other things. 

Sefior Puchol was a literary man and was writing a symbol- 
istic drama which he wanted to read to Caesar. 

At twelve they said good-night. Puchol was to tell his chief 
that he had not been able to do any business with Sefior Pérez 
Cuesta. In respect to the other matter, they had an engagement 
for ten the next morning at a café in the neighbourhood of the 
Bourse. | 

There were no great difficulties to overcome. They saw a 
broker named Miiller. Caesar entrusted him with his twenty 
thousand francs, and hinted that the speculation was being made 


THE PITFALL OF SINIGAGLIA 279 


for some rich people, who would have no objection to making up 
any loss, if he should exceed the twenty thousand francs. 

The broker told him he could play whatsoever sum he wished. 

As Caesar had not entire confidence in Puchol, and did not 
care either to tell the broker that he was to begin only when the 
stocks fell, he brought Yarza into the deal. 

Puchol was to say to Yarza: ‘“‘ The Minister has given the 
order to sell’; and Yarza would first verify this, if he could 
verify it; then he would tell the broker: “Sell.” It might go 
as far as handling twenty millions of Foreigns and up to a 
thousand of Northerns. 

In order to get all the ends well tied up, Caesar had to get 
from one place to another without a moment’s rest. 


IN MADRID 


The trap being set, Caesar took the train, worn out and 
feverish. He arrived at Madrid, took a bath, and went to see 
the Minister; and after the interview went to his house in the 
Calle de Galileo and spent two reg in bed, aime in the com- 
pletest silence. 

The third day Alzugaray arrived, anxious. 

“What’s the matter? Are you sick? ” he asked. 

“No. How did you know I was here?” 

“Your janitress came to my house to tell me you were in 
bed.” 

“ Well, there’s nothing wrong with me, boy.” 

“You should know that there’s a splendid chance to make 
some money, today.” 

“My dear fellow! ” 

“Yes, and we haven’t done anything in the market, except 
one miserable little operation.” 

“ And why do you think there is such a good chance? ” 

“‘ Because there is, because everybody can see it,” said Alzu- 
garay. “ Prices are going to rise with this project of the Min- 
ister of Finance’s; they are going in for a big deal; everybody 
has been indiscreet, without meaning to be, and people on the 


280 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


market are buying and buying. Everybody is sure of a rise 

. . and we are doing nothing.” : 

“We are doing nothing,” repeated Caesar. 

“ But it is absurd.” 

“ What’s the date? ” 

“ The twenty-sécond.” 

“ The evening of the twenty-seventh we will talk.” 

“ How mysterious you are, boy.” 

“T can’t tell you any more now. If you have bought any- 
thing, sell it.” 

“ But why?” 

“T can’t tell you.” 

“ All right, when you get on these sibylline airs, I say no 
more. Another thing. Various gentlemen have come to tell me 
that they wanted to play the market; they have heard that it is 
about to go up... .” 

“Who were they? ” 

“ Among others, Amparito’s father and Don Calixto Garcia 
Guerrero.” 

“ If they wish to give security, tell our broker, and I will sell 
them anything they want to buy.” 

* Really? ” 

“Really. I have my reasons for doing it.” 

“This time we are all going to make, except you.” 

“ Dear Ignacio, I am at Sinigaglia.” 

“What does that mean? ” 

“If you have a moment free, read the history of the Borgias,” 
murmured Caesar, turning over in bed. 

The next few days Caesar lived in constant intranquillity. 
Yarza telegraphed him, saying that they had done the whole 
operation. On the 27th, in the afternoon, Caesar wandered 
toward the Calle de Alcala; Madrid wore its normal aspect; 
the newspaper boys were calling no extras. More worried than 
he liked, Caesar went for his walk by the Canalillo and then 
shut himself in his house. In the evening he went out breath- 
less and bought the newspapers. His first impression was one 
of panic; there was nothing; on reaching the third page he ut- 


THE PITFALL OF SINIGAGLIA 281 


tered an exclamation and smiled. The Minister of Finance had 
just offered his resignation. 

The next morning Caesar went to the hotel in the Carrera de 
San Jerédnimo where he had a room, and in the afternoon to 
the Chamber. He telephoned to Alzugaray to come and see 
him after the exchange closed. 

Alzugaray arrived, looking pale, in company with Amparito’s 
father, Don Calixto, and the broker. They were all wretched. 
The news was horrible. Domestics had fallen two points and 
were still falling; in Paris the Foreign Loan had fallen more 
than four; Northern was not falling but tumbling to the bot- 
tom of a precipice. 

“Did you know that the Minister was going to present his 
resignation? ” asked the broker, in despair. 

“J, no. How should I know it? Even the Minister him- 
self couldn’t have known it yesterday. But I had scientific 
data for not believing in that rise.” 

“T am ruined,” exclaimed the broker. “I have lost my 
savings.” 

Don Calixto and Amparito’s father had also lost very large 
sums, which Caesar won, and they were disconsolate. 

When they were gone and only Alzugaray remained, he said 
to Caesar: 

“ And you have played in Paris, too, probably.” 

“ Yes.”’ 

“On a fall?” 

“ Certainly.” 

“You are a bandit.” 

“This game, my dear Ignacio, based solely on events, is not 
a speculator’s game, but is, simply, a hold-up. The other day 
I told you: ‘I am at Sinigaglia.’ Did you read the history of 
Caesar Borgia? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“Well, what he did at Sinigaglia to the condottieri, to Vit- 
tellozzo, Oliverotto da Fermo, and his other two captain-adven- 
turers, I have done to the Minister of Finance, to Don Calixto, 
Amparito’s father, and many others.” 


282 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


And Caesar explained his game. Alzugaray was amazed. 

“ How much have you made? ” 

“From what these telegrams say, I think I shall go over half 
a million francs. From those beginners, Don Calixto and Am- 
parito’s father, I think I have made forty thousand pesetas.” 

“What an atrocious person! If the Minister should find out 
about your game.” 

“Let him find out. I am not worried. The famous finan- 
cier, in addition to being an idiot, is an honourable rogue. 
He plays the market with the object of enriching himself and 
leaving a fortune to his repugnant children. 1, on the other 
hand, play it with a patriotic object.” 

The matter didn’t rest there: Puchol, carried away by an 
easily comprehensible desire for lucre, and thinking it brought 
the same amount to the famous. financier whether he played 
through Recquillart or through Miiller, had made the last bid 
for the Minister through the new broker. 

The Minister’s winnings diminished considerably and Cae- 
sar’s gained in proportion. The illustrious financier, on learn- 
ing what had happened, shrieked to heaven; but he said nothing, 
because of the secret transaction they had had together. Puchol 
was dismissed by Recquillart, and with the thirty thousand 
francs he collected from Caesar he set up for himself. 

The Minister, a little later, went to Biarritz, to collect his 
share. On his return he sent Caesar a note, unsigned and writ- 
ten on the type-writer. It read: 

“I did not think you had enough ability for cheating. An- 
other time I will be more careful.” 

Caesar replied in the same manner, as follows: 

“When it’s a question of a man who, besides being an idiot, 
is a poor creature and a cheat like you, I have no scruple in rob- 
bing him first and despising him afterwards.” 

Some days later Caesar published an article attacking the 
retiring Minister of Finance and disclosing a lot of data and 
figures. ‘ 

The Minister answered with a letter in a Conservative paper, 
in which he denied everything Caesar alleged, and said, with 


THE PITFALL OF SINIGAGLIA 283 


contempt, that questions of Finance were not to be treated by 
“ amateurs.” 

Caesar said that he considered himself insulted by the Min- 
ister’s words, whom, however, he admired as a financier; and a 
few months later he joined the Liberal party and was received 
with open arms by its famous chief. 


XII 
LOCAL STRUGGLES 


THE WATER SUPPLY 


AESAR had money in abundance, and he decided to 
exert a decisive influence on Castro Duro. 
For a long while he had had various projects planned. 

He thought it was an appropriate moment to put them into 
practice. 

The first that he tried to carry out was the water supply. 

The Municipality had a plan for this in the archives, and 
Caesar asked for it to study. The scheme was big and expen- 
sive; the stream it was necessary to harness so as to bring it to 
Castro, was far away. Besides it was requisite to construct a 
piping system or an aqueduct. 

Caesar consulted an engineer, who told him: 

“From a business point of view, this is very poor. Even if 
you use the superfluous water, in a factory for instance, it will 
give you no results.” 

“What shall we do then?” 

“The simplest thing would be to put in a pumping plant and 
pump up the river water.” 

“ But it is infected water, full of impurities.” 

“ Tt can be purified by filtering. That’s not difficult.” 

Caesar laid this plan before the Municipality, and it was 
decided to carry it out, as the most practical and practicable. A 
company was formed to pump up the water, and work was 
begun. 

The stockholders were almost all rich people of Castro, and 
the company drew up its constitution in such a manner that 
the town got scarcely any benefit out of it. They were not 
going to instal more than two public fountains inside the city 

284 


LOCAL STRUGGLES 285 


limits, and those were to run only a few hours. Caesar tried 
to convince them that this was absurd, but nobody paid any 
attention to him. 


THE LIBRARY 


A bit disappointed, he left the “ Water Pumping Company ” 
to go its way, and devoted himself entirely to things that he 
could carry out alone. ~ 

The first one he tried was establishing a circulating library of 
technical books on trades and agriculture, and of polite and 
scientific literature, in the Workmen’s Club. 

“They will sell the books,” everybody said; “ they will get 
them all soiled, and tear out the leaves. . . .” 

Caesar had the volumes bound, and at the end of each he had 
ten or twelve blank sheets put in, in case the reader wished to 
write notes. 

The experiment began; predictions were not fulfilled; the 
books came back to the library untorn and unspotted and with 
some very ingenuous notes in them. Lots of people took out 
books. 

The clerical element immediately protested; the priests said 
in the pulpit that to send any chance book to working people’s 
houses without examining it first, was to lead people into error. 
Dr. Ortigosa retorted that Science did not need the approval 
of sacristans. As, in spite of the clerical element’s advice, peo- 
ple kept on reading, there were various persons that took out 
books and filled them with obscene drawings and tore out illus- 
trations. Dr. Ortigosa sent Caesar a letter informing him what 
was happening, and Caesar answered that he must limit the dis- 
tribution of books to the members of the Workmen’s Club and 
people that were known. He bade him replace the six or seven 
books abused, and continued to send new ones. 

The ferment kept the city stirred up; there were no end of 
heated discussions; lectures were given in the Club, and Dr. 
Ortigosa’s paper, The Protest, came to life again. 

“I am with you in whatever will agitate the people’s ideas,” 
wrote Caesar; “ but if they start to play orators and revolution- 


286 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


ists, and you folks come along with pedantic notions, then I for 
my part shall drop the whole thing.” 

When Caesar was in Castro, he spent his evenings at the 
Workmen’s Club. They gave moving pictures and frequent 
balls. Caesar did not miss one of the Club’s entertainments. 
The men came to him for advice, and the girls and the little 
boys bowed to him affectionately. There was great enthusiasm 
over him. 


THE BENEVOLENT SOCIETY 


Shortly after the initiation of these improvements in the Club, 
there appeared in Castro Duro, without fuss, without noise, 
two rather mysterious societies; the Benevolent Society of Saint 
Joseph and the Agricultural Fund. In an instant the Benevo- 
lent Society of Saint Joseph had a numerous array of members 
and patrons. All the great landholders of the region, including 
Amparito’s father, bound themselves to employ no labourers ex- 
cept those belonging to the Benevolent Society. In the neigh- 
bouring villages the inhabitants joined en masse. At the same 
time as this important society, Father Martin and his friends 
founded the Castrian Agricultural Fund, whose purpose was 
to make loans, at a low rate of interest, to small proprietors. 

The two Catholic institutions set themselves up in rivalry to 
the Workmen’s institution. The town was divided; the Catho- 
lics were more numerous and richer; the Liberals more deter- 
mined and enthusiastic. The Catholics had given their up- 
holders a resigned character. 

Moreover, the name Catholic applied to the members of the 
two Clerical societies made those who did not belong to them 
admit with great tranquillity that they were not Catholics. 

The Clericals called their enemies Moncadists, and by impli- 
cation Schismatics, Atheists, and Anarchists. Inside the town 
there was a Moncadist majority; in the environs everybody was 
a Catholic and belonged to the Benevolent Society. 

Generally the Catholics were abused in word and deed by 
the Moncadists; the members of the Workmen’s Club held those 
of the Benevolent Society for cowards and traitors. 


LOCAL STRUGGLES 287 


Doubtless Father Martin did not wish that his followers 
should be distinguished by Christian meekness, and he appointed 
a bully whom people called “ Driveller”” Juan warden of the 
Benevolent Society. This Juan was a lad who lived without 
working; his mother and his sisters were dressmakers, and he 
bled them for money, and spent his life in taverns and gam- 
bling-dens. 

“ Driveller ” began to insult members of the club, especially 
the boys, and to defy them, on any pretext. Dr. Ortigosa went 
to see Caesar and explained the situation. ‘ Driveller” was a 
coward, he didn’t venture beyond a few peaceable workmen; 
but if he had defied “ Furibis” or “ Panza” or any of the 
railway men that belonged to the Club, they would have 
given him what he deserved. But in spite of “ Driveller’s” 
cowardice, he inspired terror among the young boys and appren- 
tices. 

Dr. Ortigosa was in favour of getting another bully, who 
could undertake the job of cutting out “ Driveller’s ” guts. 

“Whom are we to get? ” asked Caesar. 

“We know somebody,” said Ortigosa. 

“Who is it?” 

“* El Montes.’ ” 

“What kind of a party is he?” 

“A bandit like the other, but braver.” 


BANDITS 


“‘ El Montes ” had just come out of Ocafia. 

He was a Manchegan, tall, strong, robust, and had been in 
the penitentiary several times. 

“And how do we manage ‘ El] Montes’? ” asked Caesar. 

“ We make him a servant at the Workmen’s Club.” 

“ He will corrupt the place.” 

“ Yes, that’s true. Then at the right moment we shall send 
him to the Café del Comercio. They gamble at that café; he 
can go there and in two or turee days call a halt on ‘ Driveller’ 
Juan.” 


288 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“ Good.”’ 

“We must arrange for you to dismiss the new judge and put 
in some friend of yours, and one fine day we will get a quarrel 
started and we will put all Father Martin’s friends in jail.” 

“You two play atrocious politics,” said Alzugaray, who was 
listening to the conversation. 

* It’s the only kind that will work,” replied Ortigosa. ‘“ This 
is scientific politics. Ruffianism converted into philosophy. 
We are playing a game of chess with Father Martin and we 
are going to see if we can’t win it.” 

“ But, man, employing all these cut-throats! ” 

“My dear friend,” responded Caesar, “ political situations 
include such things; with their heads they touch the noblest 
things, the safety of one’s native land and the race; with their 
feet they touch the meanest things, plots, vices, crimes. A 
politician of today still has to mingle with reptiles, even though 
he be an honourable man.” 

“ Besides, we need have no scruples,” added Ortigosa; “ the 
inhabitants of Castro are laboratory guinea-pigs. We are going 
to experiment on them, we are going to see if they can stand 
the Liberal serum.” 


THE TWO ASYLUMS 


A little after these rivalries between the Benevolent Society 
and the Workmen’s Club, which stirred up every one’s passions 
to an extreme never before known at Castro Duro, another mo- 
tive for agitation transpired. 

There were two asylums in the town; the Municipal Aid and 
the Asylum of the Little Sisters of the Poor. 

The Municipal Aid had its own property and was wisely 
organized; the old people were permitted to go out of the 
asylum, they had no uniform, and from time to time they were 
allowed to drink a glass of something. In the Little Sisters’ 
Home, on the contrary, discipline was most severe; all the in- 
mates had to go dressed in a horrible uniform, which the poor 
hated; to be present, like a chorus, at the funerals of important 
persons; pray at every step; and besides all that, they were 


LOCAL STRUGGLES 289 


forbidden under pain of expulsion, to smoke or to drink any- 
thing. 

So the result was that there were abandoned old wretches, 
who, if they couldn’t get a place in the Aid, let themselves die 
in some corner, rather than put on the uniform of the Little 
Sisters’ Home, degrading in their eyes. 

That asylum had no income, because its Catholic managers 
had eaten it all up. In view of the institution’s bad economic 
condition, it occurred to Father Martin to consolidate the two; 
to make one asylum of the municipal and the religious, and to 
put it under the strict rule of the religious one. What Father 
Martin wanted was that the Little Sisters should have a finger 
in the whole thing, and that the income of one institution should 
serve for both. 

Caesar threatened the mayor with dismissal if he accepted 
the arrangement, and insisted that the Liberal councilmen should 
not permit the fusion, which was to the great advantage of the 
Clerical party. 

As a matter of fact, the plan came to nothing, and Caesar 
treated the Municipal Aid to two barrels of wine and tobacco 
in abundance, which aroused great enthusiasm among the old 
people, who cheered for the Deputy of their District. 

Caesar rode over the situation on horseback; but the Clerical 
campaign strengthened at the same rate that popular sympa- 
thies went out toward him. In almost every sermon there were 
allusions to the immorality and the irreligion that reigned in 
the town. The support of the women was sought and they 
were exhorted to influence their husbands, brothers, and sons 
to resign from the Workmen’s Club. 

The old pulpit oratory began to seem mild, and on the feast 
of the Virgin of the Rock, a young preacher launched out, in 
the church, into an eloquent, violent, and despotic sermon in 
which he threatened eternal suffering to those who belonged 
to heretical clubs and would not return to the loving bosom 
of the Church. The homily caused the greatest impression, 
and there were a few unhappy mortals who, some days later, 
were reported as dead or missing at the Workmen’s Club. 


XIII 


AMPARITO IN ACTION 


LAURA AT CASTRO 


TIME for new elections arrived, and Caesar stood for 

A Castro Duro. Don Calixto, who had married his two 

daughters and was bored at not being allowed to pull 

the strings in the town, decided to move to Madrid. First he 

had thought of spending only some time at the capital, but later 
he decided to stay there and he had his furniture sent down. 

People said that Don Calixto had no great affection for the 
old palace of the Dukes of Castro, and Caesar proposed that 
he should rent the house to him. 

Don Calixto hesitated; in Castro he would certainly have 
refused, but being in Madrid he accepted. His wife advised 
him that if he had any scruples, he should ask more rent. — 
They came to the agreement that Caesar should pay three thou- 
sand pesetas a year for the part Don Calixto had formerly 
inhabited. 

This time Caesar had the election won, and there was not 
the slightest fight. He was the boss of Castro, a good boss, 
accepted by everybody, save the Clericals. 

Caesar had money, and he wrote to his sister to come and 
see him at Castro in his seigniorial mansion. Laura arrived at 
Madrid in the autumn, and the two went to Castro together. 

Laura’s appearance in the town created a great sensation. 
At first people said she was Caesar’s wife. Others said she 
was an actress; until finally everybody understood that she was 
his sister. 

Laura really took undue advantage of her superiority. She 
was irresistibly amiable and bewitching with everybody. The 

290 


AMPARITO IN ACTION 291 


majority of the men in Castro Duro talked of nothing but her, 
and the women hated her to the death. 

Being a marchioness, a Cardinal’s niece, and a Deputy’s 
sister, gave her, besides, a terrible social prestige. 

One person who clung to her, enchanted to have such a 
friend, was Amparito. She went to the palace in her motor at 
all hours, to see Laura and chat with her. In the afternoon 
the two of them used to walk in Amparito’s father’s property, 
where the labourers, who were threshing, received them like 
queens. 

What enchanted Laura was the wild garden at Don Calixto’s 
house, with its pomegranates and laurels, its tower above the 
river, full of climbing plants and oleanders. 

“You ought to buy this house,” she used to tell Caesar. 

“Tt would cost a good deal.” 

“Pshaw! You could arrange that wonderfully. You would 
get married and live here like a prince.” 

“ Get married? ” 

“Yes. To Amparito. That young thing is enchanting. 
She will make a splendid little wife. Even for your respecta- 
bility as a Deputy, it would be fitting to marry. A bachelor 
politician has a poor look.” 

Caesar paid no attention to these suggestions and continued 
to lead an unsocial life. He covered the environs on horse- 
back, found out everything that was going on and settled it. 
In this he set himself an enormous task, which was not notable 
for results; but he hoped to succeed in conquering the district 
completely, and then to extend his sphere of action to others 
and yet others. 

After being a fortnight in Castro Duro, Laura went to Biar- 
ritz, as was her custom every year. 


AMPARITO AND CAESAR 


Caesar was left alone. He had seen Amparito with his sister 
many times but had scarcely ever exchanged more than a few 
words with her. One afternoon Caesar was in the gallery in 


292 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


an arm-chair, with his feet high. He felt melancholy and lazy, 
and was watching the clouds move across the sky. Soon he 
heard steps, and saw Amparito with an old servant who had 
been her nurse. 

Caesar jumped up. 

“ What’s the matter? ” he exclaimed. 

“I came to get something Laura forgot,” said Amparito. 

“ She forgot something? ” asked Caesar stupidly. 

“Yes,” replied Amparito; and added, addressing the old 
woman : 

“Go see if there is a little glass box in Sefiorita Laura’s 
room.” 

The old woman went out, and Amparito, looking at Caesar, 
who was on his feet watching her nervously, said: 

“ Do you still hate me? ” 

“TI?” exclaimed Caesar. 

“Yes, you do hate me.” 

“JT! I have never hated you. . . . Quite the contrary.” 

“Whenever you see me you get away, and just now you 
looked at me as if you were terrified. Have you such a grudge 
against me for a joke I played on you long ago?” 

“J, a grudge! No. It is because I have the impression, 
Amparito, that you want to upset my plans, to make game of 
me. Why do you?” 

“Do you think I try to amuse myself by worrying you?” 

“ Yes.”’ 

“No, that isn’t true. You don’t think so.” 

“Then why this constant inclination to distress me, to poke 
fun at me?” 

“T never poked fun at you.” 

“Then I have made a mistake. . . . I had come to think 
that you took some interest in me.” 

“And so I did. I did take an interest in you, and I keep 
on taking an interest in you.” 

“ And why so?” 

“‘ Because I see that you are unhappy, and you are alone.” 

“Ah! You are sorry for me!” 


AMPARITO IN ACTION 293 


“ Now you are offended. Yes, I am sorry for you.” 

“ Sorry! ” 

“Yes, sorry. Because I see that you despise everybody and 
despise yourself, because you think people are bad, and that 
you are too, and to me this seems so sad that it makes me 
pity you deeply.” 

Caesar began to walk up and down the gallery, trembling a 
little. 

“T don’t see why you say this to me,” he murmured. “I 
am a morbid man, with an ulcerated, wounded spirit... . I 
know that. But why say it to me? Do you take pleasure in 
humiliating me?” 

“No, Caesar,” said Amparito, drawing near him. “ You 
don’t believe that I take pleasure in humiliating you. No, you 
know well that I do not.” 

On saying this, Amparito burst into tears, and she had to 
lean against the gallery window, to hide her face and dissemble 
her emotion. 

Caesar took her hand, and as she did not turn her head, he 
seized her other, too. She looked at him with her eyes shining 
and full of tears; and in that look there was so much attach- 
ment, so much distress, that Caesar felt a weakness in his 
whole frame. Then, taking Amparito’s head between his 
hands, he kissed it several times. 

She leaned her head on Caesar’s shoulder and stood pressed 
against him, sobbing. Caesar felt a sensation of anguish and 
pain, as if within the depths of his soul, the strongest part of 
his personality had broken and melted. 

They heard the footsteps of the old woman, coming back to 
say that she had found nothing in the room Laura had occupied 
during her stay. 

Amparito dried her tears, and smiled, and her face was red- 
der than usual. Presently she said to the nurse: 

“Probably you didn’t look well. I am going to go my- 
self.” 

Amparito went out. 

Caesar was pale and absorbed; he felt that something ex- 


294 CAESAR OR NOTHING. 


traordinary had happened to him. His hands trembled and 
things swam around him. ; 

In a short while Amparito returned. She had a round glass 
box in her hand, which she said she had found in Laura’s 
room. 

“ This afternoon I am going to Our Lady of the Rock,” said 
Amparito. ‘ Will you come, Caesar? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then, good-bye till then.” 

Amparito gave him her hand, and Caesar kissed it. The 
old servant was dumfounded. Amparito burst out laughing. 

“He is my beau. Hadn’t you noticed it before?” 

“No,” said the old woman with a gesture of violent nega- 
tion. 

Amparito laughed again and disappeared. 

The first days of his engagement Caesar was constantly in- 
tranquil and uneasy. He kept thinking that it was impossible 
to live like that, giving his whole attention to nothing except 
the desires of a girl. He imagined that the awakening would 
come from one moment to the next; but the awakening didn’t 
arrive. : 

By degrees Caesar abandoned all the affairs of the district, 
which had taken all his attention, and took to occupying him- 
self solely with his sweetheart. The whole town knew their 
relations and talked of the coming wedding. 

That dazzling idyll intrigued all the girls in Castro. The 
truth was that none of them had considered Caesar a marrying 
man; some had imagined him already old; others an experi- 
enced and vicious bachelor, incapable of yielding to the matri- 
monial yoke; and now they saw him a youth, of distinguished 
type, with distinguished manners and looks. 

Caesar went almost daily to Amparito’s father’s country- 
place. It was a magnificent estate, another ancient property 
of the Dukes of Castro Duro, with a house adorned with 
escutcheons, and an extensive stone pool, deep and mysterious. 
The garden did not resemble that at Don Calixto’s house, for 
that one was of a frantic gaiety, and the one on Amparito’s 


AMPARITO IN ACTION 295 


father’s estate was very melancholy. Above all, the square of 
water in the pool, whose edges were decorated with great granite 
vases, had a mysterious, sad aspect. 

“ Doesn’t it make you very sad to look at this deep water 
in the pool?” Caesar asked his fiancée. 

“No, it doesn’t me.” 

“ Tt does me.” 

“ Because you are a poet,” she said, “and I am not; I am 
very prosaic.” 

“ Really? ” 

“cc Yes.” 

The more Caesar talked with Amparito, the less he under- 
stood her and the more he needed to be with her. 

“We really do not think the same about anything,” Caesar 
used to tell himself, “‘and yet we understand each other.” 

Many times he endeavoured to make a psychological résumé 
of Amparito’s character, but he didn’t succeed. He didn’t 
know how to classify her; her type always escaped him. 

* All her notions are different from mine,” he used to think; 
“she speaks in another way, feels in another way, she even 
has a different moral code. How strange! ” 

Also, what Amparito knew was completely heterogeneous; 
she spoke French well and wrote it fairly correctly; in Spanish, 
on the other hand, she had no idea of spelling. Caesar was 
always stupefied on seeing the transpositions of h’s, s’s, and z’s 
that she made in her letters. 

There remained by Amparito, from her passage through the 
French school, a recollection of the history of France made up 
of a few anecdotes and a few phrases. Thus, it was not un- 
usual to hear her speak of Turenne, of Francis I, or of Colbert. 
For the rest, she played the piano badly enough and with ex- 
tremely little enthusiasm. 

This was the part belonging to her education as a rich young 
lady; that which belonged to the country girl, who lived among 
peasants, was more curious and personal. 

She knew many plants by their vulgar names, and under- 
stood their industrial and medicinal use. Besides, she spoke 


296 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


in such pure, natural phrases that Caesar was filled with ad- 
miration. 

Caesar had reached such a degree of exaltation that he 
thought of nothing any more, except his sweetheart. At night, 
before going to sleep, he thought of her deliriously. He often 
dreamed that Amparito had changed into the red-flowered ole- 
ander of the wild palace garden, and in every flower of the: 
oleander he used to see Amparito’s red lips and white teeth. 


XIV 
INTRANSIGENCE LOST 


DISQUIET DISAPPEARS 


HE wedding took place,and Caesar had to compromise 
about a lot of things. It didn’t trouble him to con- 
fess and receive communion; he considered those mere 

customs, and went to the church of the Plain to conform to 
these practices with the old priest who was a friend of Ampa- 
rito’s. 

On the other hand, it did bother Caesar to have to suffer 
Father Martin in his house, who allowed himself to talk and 
give advice; and he was also irritated by the presence of cer- 
tain persons who considered themselves aristocrats and who 
came to call on him and point out to him that it was now time 
to give up the rabble and the indigent and to rise to their level. 

If he had not had so much to think about as he did have, 
he would have found this a good chance to show his aggressive 
humour; but all his attention was fixed on Amparito. 

The newly married pair spent the first days of their honey- 
moon at Castro; then they went to Madrid, with the intention 
of going abroad, and afterwards they went back to the town. 

The old palace of the Dukes of Castro was witness to their 
idyll. 

At the end of some time Caesar felt tranquil, perhaps too 
tranquil. 

“This, no doubt, is what is called being happy,” he used to 
say to himself. And being happy gave him the impression of 
a limbo; he felt as though his old personality was dying within 
him. He could no longer recover his former way of life; all 
his disquietudes had vanished. He felt that he was balanced, 

297 


298 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


lacking those alternations of courage and cowardice which had 
previously formed the characteristic thing in him. It was the 
oasis after the desert; the calm that follows the storm. 

Caesar wondered if he had acquired new nerves. His in- 
stinct to be arbitrary was on the downward track. 

He could not easily determine what rdle his wife played in 
his inner life. He felt the necessity of having her beside him, 
of talking to her; but he did not understand whether this was 
mere selfishness, for the sake of the soothing effect her presence 
produced, or was for the satisfaction of his vanity in seeing 
how she gave all her thought to him. 

Spiritually he did not feel her either identified with him or 
strange to him; her soul marched along as if parallel to his, 
but in other paths. 

*“ All that men say about women is completely false,” Caesar 
used to think, “and what women say about themselves, equally 
so, because they merely repeat what men say. Only when they 
are completely emancipated will they succeed in understanding 
themselves. It is indubitable that we have not the same lead- 
ing ideas, or the same points of view. Probably we have not 
a similar moral sense either. Neither is woman made for man, 
nor man for woman. ‘There is necessity between them, not 
harmony.” 

Many times, watching Amparito, he told himself: 

“There is some sort of machinery in her head that I do not 
understand.” 

Noting his scrutinizing gaze, she would ask him: 

“ What are you thinking about me? ” 

He would explain his perplexities, and she would laugh. 


SYMPATHY 


Indubitably, there existed an instinctive accord of the senti- 
ments between Amparito and him, an organic sympathy. She 
could feel for them both, but he could not think for them both; 
each mental machine ran in isolation, like two watches, which 
do not hear each other. She knew whether Caesar was sad or 


INTRANSIGENCE LOST 299 


joyful, disheartened or spirited, merely by looking at him. 
She had no need to ask him; she could read Caesar’s face. He 
could not, on his side, understand what went on behind that 
little forehead and those moist and sparkling eyes. 

“ Are-you feeling happy? Are you feeling sad?” he would 
ask her. He could not reach the point of knowing by him- 
self. 

“T never succeed in knowing what you want,” he sometimes 
said to her, bitterly. 

“Why, you always succeed,” she used to reply. 

Caesar often wondered if the rdle of being so much loved, 
whether wrong or right, was an absurd, offensive thing. In 
all great affections there is one peculiarity; if one loves a per- 
son, one gets to the point of changing that person to an idol 
inside oneself, and from that moment it seems that the person 
divides into the unreal idol, which is like a false picture of the 
adored one, and the living being, who resembles the idolized 
object very slightly. 

Caesar found something absurd in being loved like that. 
Besides, he found that she was dragging him away from him- 
self. After six months of marriage, she was making him change 
his ideas and his way of life, and he was having absolutely no 
influence on her. 

Previously he had often thought that if he lived with a 
woman, he should prefer one that was spiritually foreign to 
him, who should look on him like a rare plant, not with one 
that would want to identify herself with his tastes and his 
sympathies, 

With a somewhat hostile woman he would have felt an incli- 
nation to be voluble and contradictory; with a sympathetic 
woman, on the contrary, he would have seemed to himself like 
@ circus runner whom one of his pupils is trying to overtake, 
and who has to run hard to keep the record where it belongs. 

But his wife was neither one nor the other. 

Amparito had an extraordinary insouciance, gaiety, facility, 
in accepting life. Caesar never ceased being amazed. She 
spent her days working, talking, singing. The slightest di- 


300 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


version enchanted her, the most insignificant gift aroused a 
lively satisfaction. 

“ Everything is decided, as far as you are concerned,” Caesan 
used to tell her. 

“ By what? ” 

“* By your character.” 

She laughed at that. 

It seemed as if she had chosen the best attitude toward life. 
She saw that her husband was not religious, but she considered 
that an attribute of men, and thought that God must have an 
especial complacency toward husbands, if only so as not to 
leave wives alone in paradise. 

Amparito held by a fetichistic Catholicism, conditioned by 
her situation in life, and mixed with a lot of heterodox and 
contradictory ideas, but she didn’t give any thought to that. 

The marriage was very successful; they never had disputes 
or discussions. When both were stubborn, they never noticed 
which one yielded. 

They had rented one rather big floor facing on the Retiro, 
and they began to furnish it. 

Amparito had bad taste in decoration; everything loud pleased 
her, and sometimes when Caesar laughed, she would say: 

“T know I am a crazy country girl. You must tell me how 
to fix things.” 

Caesar decided the arrangement of a little reception-room. 
He chose a light paper for the walls, some coloured engravings, 
and Empire furniture. Female friends found the room very 
well done. Amparito used to tell them: 

“Yes, Caesar had it done like this,” as if that were a weighty 
argument with everybody. 

Amparito and her father persuaded Caesar that he ought 
to open an office. All the people in Castro lamented that 
Caesar did not practise law. 

He had always felt a great repugnance for that sharpers’ and 
skinflints’ business; but he yielded to please Amparito, and set 
up his office and took an assistant who was very skilful in legal 
tricks. 


INTRANSIGENCE LOST 301 


Caesar was often to be found writing in the office, when 
Amparito opened the door. 

“Do you want to come here a moment? ” she would say. 

“Yes. What is it?” 

“Took and see how this hat suits me. How do you like 
it?” 

Caesar would laugh and say: 

“T think you ought to take off the flowers, or it ought to be 
smaller.” 

Amparito accepted Caesar’s suggestions as if they had been 
articles of faith. 

Caesar, on his part, had a great admiration for his wife. 
What strength for facing life! What amazing energy! 

“T walk among brambles and leave a piece of my clothing 
on every one of them,” thought Caesar, “ and she passes art- 
lessly between all obstacles, with the ease of an ethereal thing. 
It’s extraordinary! ” 

It pleased Amparito to be thus observed. 

Her husband used to tell her: 

“You have, as it were, ten or twelve Amparitos inside of 
you; it often seems to me that you are a whole round of Ampa- 
ritos.” 

“Well, you are not more than one Caesar to me.” 

“ That’s because I have the ugly vice of talking and of being 
consequential.” 

“Don’t I talk?” 

“ Yes, in another way.” 


DOUBT 


In the spring they went to Castro, and the members of the 
Workmen’s Club presented themselves before Caesar to remind 
him of a project for a Co-operative and a School, which he had 
promised them. They were all ready to put up what was neces- 
sary for realizing both plans. 

Caesar listened to them, and although with great coldness, 
said yes, that he was ready to initiate the scheme. A few 
days later, in Dr. Ortigosa’s Protest, there was enthusiastic 


302 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


talk of the Great Co-operative, which, when established, would 
improve, and at the same time cheapen necessary articles. 

The same day that the paper came out with this news, a 
commission of the shopkeepers of Castro waited on Caesar. 
The scheme would ruin them. It was especially the small shop- 
keepers that considered themselves most injured. 

Caesar replied that he would think it over and decide in an 
equitable manner, looking for a way to harmonize the interests 
of all people. Really he didn’t know what to do, and as he 
had no great desire to begin new undertakings, he wanted to 
call the Co-operative dead, but Dr. Ortigosa was not disposed 
to abandon the idea. 

“Tt is certain that if goods are made cheaper,” said the 
doctor, “ and the Co-operative is opened to the public, the shop- 
keepers will have to fight it, and then either they or we shall 
be ruined; but something else can be done, and that is to sell 
articles to the public at the same price as the tradesmen, 
and arrange it that members get a dividend from the profits of 
the society. In that way there will be no fight, at any rate not 
at first.” 

They tried to do it that way, but it did not satisfy the poor 
people, or calm the shopkeepers. 

Caesar, who had lost his lust for a fight, put the scheme 
aside;-and although it would cost him more, decided to have 
the construction of the school begun. 

The Municipality ceded the lot and granted a subsidy of five 
thousand pesetas to start the work; Caesar gave ten thousand, 
and at the Workmen’s Club a subscription was opened, and 
performances were given in the theatre to collect funds. 

The school promised to be a spacious edifice with a beautiful 
garden. ‘The corner-stone was laid in the presence of the 
Governor of the Province, and despite the fact that the founders’ 
intention was to found a lay school, the Clerical element took 
part in the celebration. 

When the work began, the majority of the members of the 
Club were shocked to find that the masons, instead of work- 
ing on the same conditions as for other jobs, asked more pay, 


INTRANSIGENCE LOST 303 


as if the school where their sons might study were an institu- 
tion more harmful than beneficial for them. 

Caesar, on learning this, smiled bitterly and said: 

“They are not obliged to be less of brutes than the bour- 
geoisie.”” 

From Madrid Caesar continued sending maps for the school, 
engravings, bas-reliefs, a moving-picture machine. 

Dr. Ortigosa and his friends went every day to look over 
the work. 

A year from the beginning of work, the boys and girls’ school 
was opened. Dr. Ortigosa succeeded in arranging that two of 
the three male teachers they procured were Free-Thinkers. 
One of them, a poor man who had lived a dog’s life in some 
town in Andalusia, was reputed to be an anarchist. They ap- 
pointed three female teachers too, two old, and one young, a 
very attractive and clever girl, who came from a town near 
Bilboa. 

Caesar took part in the opening, and spoke, and received en- 
thusiastic applause. Despite which, Caesar felt ill at ease 
among his old friends; in his heart he knew that he was desert- 
ing them. He now thought it unlikely, almost impossible, that 
that town should succeed in emerging from obscurity and mean- 
ing something in modern life. Moreover, he doubted about 
himself, began to think that he was not a hero, began to be- 
lieve that he had assigned himself a rdle beyond his powers; 
and this precisely at the moment when the town had the most 
faith in him. 


XV 
“DRIVELLER” JUAN AND “THE CUB-SLUT ” 


A MURDER 


66 RIVELLER ” JUAN, the town dandy protected by 
Father Martin, had from childhood distinguished 
himself by his cowardice and by his tendency to 

bullying. His appearance was that of an idiot; people said he 

drivelled; whence they gave him the nickname of “ Driveller ” 

Juan. He lived by pretending to be terrible in the gambling 

houses, and bragged of having been in prison several times. 

The Clericals had made “ Driveller” the janitor of the Be- 
nevolent Society, and at the same time its bully, so that he 
could inspire terror; but as he was a coward in reality, and 
this was evident, he did not succeed in terrifying the members 
of the Workmen’s Club. 

“ Driveller” Juan was tall, red-headed, with high cheek 
bones, knotty hands, and a pendulous lip; his father, like him, 
had been bony and strong, and for that reason had been called 
“ Big Bones.” 

“ Driveller,” like the coward he was, knew that he was not 
filling his job; one day he had dared to go to a ball at the 
Workmen’s Club, and San Roman, the old Republican, had gone 
to him and tapped him on the arm, saying: 

“Listen here, ‘ Driveller,’ get out right now and don’t you 
come back.” 

“Why should I?” 

“ Because you are not wanted.” 

Juan had gone away like a whipped dog. “ Driveller” 
wanted to do a manly action, and he did it. 

There was a boy belonging to the Workmen’s Club, who was 
called “ Lengthy,” one of the few type-setters in the town, a 

304 


‘‘DRIVELLER’’ JUAN 305 


clever, facetious lad who now and then wrote an article for 
The Protest. é 2 

“ Driveller ” insisted that “ Lengthy ” wanted to make fun 
of him. No doubt he chose him for his victim, because he was 
so slim, lanky, and weak; perhaps he had some other reason 
for attacking him. One afternoon, at twilight, “ Driveller ” 
halted “ Lengthy,” demanded an explanation, insulted him, and 
on finding his victim made no reply, gave him a blow. The 
street was wet, and “ Driveller” stepped on a fruit-skin and 
fell headlong. Seeing the bully infuriated, “ Lengthy ” started 
to run, came to an open door, and ran rapidly up the stairs. 
“ Driveller,” furious, ran after him. Pursued and pursuer 
went down a hallway and “ Lengthy ” managed to reach a door 
and close it. ‘“ Driveller’s ” revengeful fury was not satisfied; 
he lay in wait until “ Lengthy,” believing himself alone, tried 
to escape from his hiding-place and was walking down the 
_ hall, and then “ Driveller” drew his pistol and fired with the 
mouth against “ Lengthy’s” shoulder, and left him dead. As 
it was a rainy day, both the dead man’s footsteps and the mur- 
derer’s could be followed and everything that had happened 
ascertained. 

The impression produced in the town by this assassination 
was enormous. Some people said that Father Martin and his 
followers had ordered “ Lengthy” killed. In the Workmen’s 
Club there was talk of setting fire to the Benevolent Society 
of Saint Joseph and of burning the monastery of la Pefia. 

Caesar was in Madrid at the time of the crime. Some days 
later a committee from the Club came to see him; it was neces- 
sary to have a charge pushed and for Caesar to be the private 
attorney. 

According to the Club people, the Clericals wanted to 
save “ Driveller” Juan, and if he was not disposed of com- 
pletely, he would begin his performances again. 

Caesar could see nothing for it but to accept the duty which 
the town put upon him. 

Because of the crime, the history of “ Driveller’s” family 
came to be public property. He had a mother and two sisters 


306 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


who were seamstresses, whom he exploited, and he lived with 
a tavern-keeper nicknamed “ The Cub-Slut,” a buxom, ma- 
licious woman, who said horrible things about everybody. 


LIFE OF “ THE CUB-SLUT” 


There were reasons for “ The Cub-Slut’s” being what she 
was. Her parents being dead when she was a baby, having no 
relatives she had been left deserted. A farrier they called 
“ Gaffer,”” who seemed to have been a kind person, took in the 
infant and brought her up in his house. It was “ Gaffer” 
who had given the nickname to the child, because instead of 
calling her by her name, he used to say: 

“ Hey, ‘Cub-Slut!’ Hey, little ‘Cub-Slut!’” and the ap- 
pellation had stuck. 

When the girl was fourteen, “ Gaffer ” ravished her, and aft- 
erwards, being tired of her, took her to a house of prostitution 
in the Capital and sold her. “The Cub-Slut ” left the brothel 
to go and live with an old innkeeper, who died and made her 
his heiress. Six years later she went back to Castro. Those 
that had seen her come back maintained that when she reached 
the town and was told that “ Gaffer” had died a few months 
before, she burst into tears; some said it was from sentiment, 
but others thought, very plausibly, that it was from rage at 
not being able to get revenge. “The Cub-Slut” set up a 
tavern at Castro. 

“ Driveller ”’ and “ The Cub-Slut ” got along well, although, 
by what any one could discover, “‘ The Cub-Slut ” treated the 
bully more like a servant than anything else. 

“The Cub-Slut ” was said to be very outspoken. One Sun- 
day, on the promenade, she had answered one of the young 
ladies of Castro rudely. The young lady was the daughter of 
a millionaire, who had married after having several children 
by a mistress of pretty bad reputation. The millionaire’s 
children had been educated in aristocratic schools, and his girls 
were very elegant young ladies; even the mother got to be refined 
and polished. 


‘*‘DRIVELLER’’ JUAN 307 


One Sunday, on the promenade, one of them, on passing near 
“The Cub-Slut,” said in a low tone to her mother: 

** Dear Lord, what riff-raff! ” 

And “ The Cub-Slut,” hearing her, stopped and said vio- 
lently: : 

“There’s no riff-raff here except your mother and me. Now 
you know it.” 

The young lady was so upset by the harsh retort that she 
didn’t leave the house again for a long while. 

Such rude candour on “ The Cub-Slut’s ” part had made her 
feared; so that nobody durst provoke her in the slightest degree. 
Besides, her history and her misfortune were known and people 
knew that she was not a vicious woman, but rather a victim of 
fate. 

The assassination of “ Lengthy ” was one of those events 
that are not forgotten in a town. “ Lengthy” was the son of 
“ Gaffer,” “‘ The Cub-Slut’s ” protector, and some people imag- 
ined that she had persuaded “ Driveller” to commit the crime; 
but the members of the Workmen’s Club continued to believe 
that it .zas a case of clerical revenge. 


“ THE CUB-SLUT’S” ARGUMENT 


In the month of June, Caesar and Amparito went to Castro 
Duro. 

One afternoon when Caesar was alone in the garden, a very 
buxom woman appeared before him, wearing a mantilla and 
dressed in black. | 

“T came in without anybody seeing me,” she said. “ Your 
porter, ‘ Wild Piglet,’ let me pass. I know that Amparito is 
not here.”’ 

She didn’t say “ Your wife,” or “ Your lady,” but “ Am- 
parito.” 

“Tell me what you want,” said Caesar, looking at the 
woman with a certain dread. 

“T am the woman that lives with ‘ Driveller’ Juan.” 

opal how are... ore 


308 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“Yes. ‘The Cub-Slut.’” 

Caesar looked at her attentively. She was of the aquiline 
type seen on Iberian coins, her nose arched, eyes big and black, 
thin-lipped mouth, and a protruding chin. She noticed his 
scrutiny, and stood as if on her guard. 

“ Sit down, if you will, please, and tell me what you wish.” 

“T am all right,” she replied, continuing to stand; then, 
precipitately, she said, ‘“‘ What I want is for them not to punish 
Juan more than is just.” 

“T don’t believe he will be punished unjustly,” responded 
Caesar. 

“The whole town says that if you speak against him in 
court, the punishment will be heavier.” 

“And you want me not to speak? ” 

“ That’s it.” 

“Tt seems to me to be asking too much. I shall do no more 
than insist that they punish him justly.” 

“There is no way to get out of it?” 

“ None. ” 

“If you wanted to . . . I would wait on you on my knees 
afterwards, I would make any sacrifice for you.” 

“ Are you so fond of the man? ” 

“The Cub-Slut ’’ answered in the negative, by an energetic 
movement of her head. 

“ Well, then, what do you expect to get out of him?” 

“T expect revenge.” 

“ The Cub-Slut’s ” eyes flashed. 

“ Is what they say about you true? ” asked Caesar. 

“ Yes.” 

“ The dead boy was the son of the man that sold you?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ But to revenge oneself on the son for the sin of the father 
is horrible.” 

“The son was just as wicked as the father.” 

“ So that you ordered him killed? ” 

“Yes, I did.” 

“ And you come and tell that to me, when I am to be the 
private attorney.” 


‘““‘DRIVELLER’’ JUAN 309 


“‘ Have them arrest me. I don’t care.” 

“The Cub-Slut ” stood firm before Caesar, provocative, with 
flashing eyes, in an attitude of challenge. 

“You hated that dead boy so much as this? ” 

“Yés, him and all his family.” 

“TJ can understand that if the father were alive, you 
might .. .” 

“If he were alive! I would give my life to drag him out of 
his tomb, so as to make him suffer as much as he made me 
suffer.” 

Caesar vaguely remembered the story he had heard about this 
woman, whose adopted father had ruined her and then left her 
in a disreputable house in the Capital. In general, the most 
absolute lack of apprehension characterizes such village trage- 
dies, and neither does the victim know she is a victim, nor the 
villain that he is a villain. 

But in this case, judging by what “ The Cub-Slut ” was tell- 
ing him, it had not been so; “ Gaffer” had gone about it with a 
certain depravity, glutting his desires on her, and then selling 
her, putting her into an infamous house. The villain had been 
cruel and intelligent; the victim had realized that she was one, 
to the degree that her soul was filled with desires for vengeance. 

“That man,” “ The Cub-Slut ” ended, sobbing, “ took away 
my name and gave me a nickname; took away my honour, my 
life, everything; and if I cannot be revenged on him because he 
is dead, I will be revenged on his family.” 

Caesar listened attentively to the woman’s explanation, with- 
out interrupting her. Then, when she had finished speaking, 
he said: 

“ And why not go away?” 

“ Away? Where? ” she asked, astonished. 

“ Anywhere. The world is so big! Why do you persist in 
living in the one spot where people know you and have a bad 
opinion of you? Go away from here. There are countries 
with more generous sentiments than these old corners of the 
world. You do not consider yourself infamous or vile.” 

“No, no.” 

“Then go away from here. To America, to Australia, any- 


310 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


where. Perhaps you can reconstruct your life. At any rate, 
nobody will call you by your nickname; nobody will talk fa- 
miliarly to you. You will conquer or you will be conquered in 
the struggle for life. That’s evident. You will share the 
common lot, but you will not be vilified. Do go.” 

“The Cub-Slut” listened to Caesar with eyes cast down. 
When he ceased, she stood looking at him intently, and then, 
without a word, she disappeared. 


XVI 
PITY, A MASK OF COWARDICE 


THE MOTHER 


OME days later Caesar was in his office, when a thin old 
woman, dressed in black, shot in, crossed the room, and 
fell on her knees before him. Caesar jumped up in dis- 

gust. 

“ What’s this? What’s going on here?” he asked. 

Amparito entered the room and explained what was going on. 
The old woman was “ Driveller’’ Juan’s mother. People had 
told Juan’s mother that the only obstacle to her son’s salvation 
from death was Caesar, and she had come to implore him not 
to let them condemn Juan to death. 

“‘My poor son is a good boy,” moaned the old creature; “a 
woman made him commit the crime.” 

Caesar listened, silent and gloomy, without speaking, and 
then left the room. Amparito remained with the old woman, 
consoling her and trying to quiet her. 

That night Amparito returned to the task, and dragged the 
promise from her husband that he would not act as private 
attorney at the trial. 

Caesar was ashamed and saddened; he didn’t care to go to 
see anybody; he was committing treason against his cause. 

“Pity will finish my work or finish me,” thought Caesar, 
walking about his room. “That poor old woman is worthy of 
compassion; that is undeniable. She believes her son is a 
good boy, and he really is a low, cowardly ruffian. I ought not 
to pay any attention to this plea, but insist on their condemning 
that miserable wretch to death. But I haven’t any more energy; 
I haven’t any more strength. I can feel that I am going to 

311 | 


312 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


yield; the mother’s grief moves me, and I do not consider that 
if this bully goes free, he is going to turn the town upside down 
and ruin all our work. I am lost.” 


FLIGHT 


Caesar confided to his wife that he was daunted; his lack of 
courage was a nightmare to him. 

Amparito said that they ought to take a long trip. Laura 
had invited them to come to Italy. It was the best thing they 
could do. 

Caesar accepted her solution, and, as a matter of fact, they 
went to Madrid and from there to Italy. 

The Workmen’s Club telegraphed to Caesar when the time 
for the trial came, and Amparito answered the telegram from 
Florence, saying that her husband was ill. 

Never had Caesar felt so agitated as then. He bought the 
Spanish newspapers, and expected to find in some one of them 
the words: ‘“‘Sefior Moncada is a coward,” or ‘“ Sefior Mon- 
cada is a sorry creature and a traitor.” 

When they knew that judgment had been pronounced and 
Juan condemned to eight years in the penitentiary, they returned 
to Madrid. 

Caesar felt humiliated and ashamed; he did not dare show 
himself in Castro. The congratulations that some people sent 
him on the restoration of his health made his cheeks hot with 
shame in the solitude of his office. 

The editor of a newspaper in the Capital of the Province 
came to call on Caesar, who was so dispirited that he confided 
to his visitor that he was ready to retire from politics. Two 
days later Caesar saw a big headline on the first page of the 
Conservative newspaper of the Capital, which said: ‘“ Mon- 
cada is about to retire.” 

Amparito applauded her husband’s decision, and Caesar 
made melancholy plans for the future, founded on the renuncia- 
tion of all struggle. 

A few days later Caesar received a letter from Castro Duro. 
which made him quiver. It was signed by Dr. Ortigosa, by 


PITY, A MASK OF COWARDICE 313 


San Roman, Camacho, the apothecary, and the leading mem- 
bers of the Workmen’s Club. The letter was in the doctor’s 
handwriting. It read thus: 


“Dear Sir: We have read in the newspaper from the Capi- 
tal the announcement that you are thinking of retiring from 
politics. We believe this announcement is not true. We can- 
not think that you, the champion of liberty in Castro Duro, 
would abandon so noble a cause, and leave the town exposed 
to the intrigues and the evil tricks of the Clericals. There is 
no question in this of whether it would suit you better to retire 
from politics, or not. That is of no importance. There is a 
question of what would suit our country and Liberty better. 

“Tf because of the seductions of an easy life, you should 
withdraw from us and desert us, you would have committed 
the crime of lése-civilization; you would have slain in its flower 
the re-birth of the spiritual and civic life of Castro. 

“We do not believe you capable of such cowardice and such 
infamy, and since we do not believe you capable of it, we beg 
you to come to Castro Duro as soon as possible to direct the 
approaching municipal elections— Dr. Ortigosa, Antonio San 
Roman, José Camacho.” 


On reading this letter Caesar felt as if he had been struck 
with a whip. Those men were correct; he had no right to retire 
from the fight. 

This conviction supported him. 

“ T have to go to Castro,” he said to Amparito. 

“ But didn’t you say that... ?” 

“ Yes, but it is impossible.” 

Amparito realized that her husband’s decision was final, and 
she said: 

“ All right; let us go to Castro.” 


XVII 
FIRST VICTORY 


HE Conservatives had come into power; the time to 
change the town government was approaching. It 
was customary at Castro, as in all rural districts in 

Spain, that in a period of Liberal administration the majority 
of the councillors elected should be Liberal, and at a time of 
Conservative government, they should be Conservative. 

The former Liberal, Garcia Padilla, had gone over to the 
Conservative camp, and one was now to see whether he would 
get his friends into the Municipality so as to prepare for his 
own election as Deputy later. 

It was the first time there was going to be a real election 
at Castro Duro. Moncada’s candidates were almost all per- 
sons of good position. Dr. Ortigosa and a Socialist weaver 
figured among the candidates, as representing the revolution- 
ary tendency. The Liberals felt and showed an. unusual 
activity and anxiety. Caesar started a newspaper which he 
named Liberty. Dr. Ortigosa was the soul of this paper, 
whose doctrines ran from Liberal Monarchy to Anarchy, inclu- 
sive. As the election drew nearer, the agitation increased. 

In the two electoral headquarters established by Moncada’s 
party, the coming and going never stopped; some enthusiastic 
Moncadists came to headquarters every fifteen minutes, to 
bring rumours going about and to get news. 

Don So-and-So had said this; Uncle What’s-His-Name was 
thinking of doing that; it was nothing but conferences and 
machinations. The painter had painted for them gratis a 
big poster expressing cheers for Liberty, for Moncada, Dr. 
Ortigosa, and the Liberal candidates. The café keeper brought 
chairs, without any one’s asking him; somebody else brought a 

314 


FIRST VICTORY 315 


brasier for the clerks; everybody was anxious to do something. 
The stock phrase, an electoral battle, was not for them a polit- 
ical commonplace but a reality. The most trivial things served 
as a motive for very long discussions. Such was their identifi- 
cation with the Idea, that it succeeded in wiping out selfish 
ends. They all felt honoured and enthusiastic, at least while 
it lasted. 

People dreamed of the election. 

When Caesar arrived at the electoral headquarters, it was 
always a series of exclamations, of embracing, of advice, that 
never ended. 

“Don Caesar, such a thing is . . . Don Caesar, don’t trust 
So-and-So.” 

“We must get rid of them.” 

“Not one of them ought to be left.” 

He used to smile, because finding himself really loved by 
the people had cleansed him of his habitual bitterness and his 
loss of spirits. When he had finished receiving recommenda- 
tions and congratulations, he would go to an inside room, and 
there, in the company of a candidate or a secretary, would read 
letters and arrange what they had to do. 

The most active of the candidates was Dr. Ortigosa. 

Ortigosa was a narrow-minded, tenacious man. His chief 
hatred was for Catholicism and he directed all his attacks at 
the religion of his forefathers, as he ironically termed it. 

He had founded a Masonic lodge, named the “ Microbe,” and 
whose principal characteristic was anti-Catholicism. 

Ortigosa carried his propaganda everywhere. He stopped 
at every corner to speechify, to talk of his plans. 

Caesar used his motor-car to go about among the villages in 
the district. ‘They would go to four or five and talk from bal- 
conies, or very often from the car, like itinerant patent-medicine 
venders, 

In the little villages these reunions produced a great effect. 
What was said served as a topic of conversation for a month. 

Caesar had developed a clear, insinuating eloquence. He 
knew how to explain things admirably. 


316 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


Padilla’s followers were not asleep; but, as was natural, 
they took up the work in another way. They went from shop 
to shop, making the shopkeepers see the harmfulness of the 
Moncadist politics, promising them advantages. ‘They threat- 
ened workmen with dismissal. ‘There was no great enthusiasm; 
their campaign was less noisy, but, in part more certain. 

All the Liberal element of Castro was wrought up, from the 
temperate Liberals, who remembered Espartero, to the An- 
archists.. “‘ Whiskers” and “ Furibis” were the only ones 
who got together in a tavern to talk about bombs and dyna- 
mite, and one could be sure that neither of them was capable 
of anything. Those two had nothing more to do with Ortigosa, 
considering him a deserter. 

“You are imbeciles,” the doctor told them, with his habitual 
fury. “This fight is waking the people up. They are be- 
ginning to show their instincts, and that makes a man strong. 
The longer and more violent this fight is, the better; progress 
will be so much quicker.” 

“ Agitation, agitation is what we need,” cried the doctor; and 
he himself was as agitated as a man condemned. 

The Liberals won a great victory; they obtained eight places 
out of ten vacancies. 


XVIII 
DECLARATION OF WAR 


E new city government of Castro was the most ex- 
traordinary that could be imagined. Dr. Ortigosa 
presented motions which caused the greatest astonish- 

ment and stupefaction, not only in the town, but in the whole 
province. He conceived magnificent plans and extravagant 
ideas. He asked to have the teaching system changed, reli- 
gious festivals suppressed and other ones instituted, property 
abolished, public baths installed, and that Castro Duro should 
break with Rome. 

The doctor was a creature born to succeed those revolutionary 
eagle-men, like Robespierre and Saint Just, and condemned to 
live in a miserable chicken-yard. 

One day when Caesar was working in his office, he was 
astounded to see Father Martin enter. 

Father Martin greeted Caesar like an old acquaintance; he 
had come to ask him a favour. Suspicious, Caesar prepared to 
listen. After speaking of the business that had brought him, 
the friar began to criticize the town-government of Castro and 
to say that it was a veritable mad-house. 

“Your friends,” said the priest, smiling, “ are unrestrained. 
They want to change everything in three days. Dr. Ortigosa 
is a crazy man... .” 

“To my mind, he is the only man in Castro that deserves 
my estimation.” 

“ Yes? ”? 

“ Yes.” 

' “This demoniac says that for him traditions have no value 
whatsoever.” 

“Qh! I think the same thing,” said Caesar. 

317 


318 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“ Are you anti-historic? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ T don’t believe it.” 

“ Absolutely. Tradition has no value for me either.” 

“The basis of tradition,” answered the friar, arguing like 
a man who carries the whole of human knowledge in the pocket 
of his habit, “is the confidence we all have in the experience 
of our predecessors. Whether I be a labourer or a pastor, even 
though I have lived fifty years, I may have great experience 
about my work and about life, but it will never be so great 
as the united experience of all those who have preceded me. 
Can I scorn the accumulation of wisdom that past generations 
hand down to us?” 

“ If you wish me to tell you the truth, for mé your gpeaena 
has no weight,” answered Caesar coldly. 

“ No? »” 

“No. It is undeniable that there is a sum of knowledge 
that comes from father to son, from one labourer to another, 
and from one pastor to another. But what value have these 
rudimentary, vague experiences, compared to the united expe- 
rience of all the men of science there have been in the world? 
It is as if you told me that the stock of knowledge of a quack 
was greater and better than that of a wise physician.” 

“T am not talking,” answered the Father, “of pure science. 
I am talking of applied science. Is one of your universal 
savants going to occupy himself with the way of sowing or of 
threshing in Castro?” 

“Yes. He has already occupied himself with it, because he 
has occupied himself with the way of sowing or threshing in 
general, and, what is more, with the variations in the processes 
that may be occasioned by the kind of soil, the climate, etc.” 

“And do you believe that such scientific pragmatism can 
be substituted for the natural pragmatism born of the people’s 
loins, created by them through centuries and centuries of life? ” 

“Yes. That is to say, I believe it can purify it; that it can 
cast out of this pragmatism, as you call it, all that is wrong, 
absurd, and false and keep what good there may be.” 


DECLARATION OF WAR 319 


“ And for you the absurd and false is Catholic morality.” 

Siti” 

“ You are not willing to discuss whether Catholicism is true 
or is a lie; you consider it a ruinous doctrine which produces 
decadence. I have been told that you have stated that on vari- 
ous occasions.” 

“Tt is true. I have said so.” 

“Then we do not agree. Catholicism is useful; Catholicism 
is efficient.” 

“For what? For this life? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“No. Pshaw! It may be useful when it comes to dying? 
Where there is Catholicism there is ruin and misery.” 

“ Nevertheless, there is no misery in Belgium.” 

“ Certainly there is none, but in that country Catholicism is 
not what it is in Spain.” 

“ Of course it isn’t,” exclaimed the friar, shouting, “ because 
what characterizes Spanish Catholicism is Spain, poverty- 
stricken, fanatic Spain, and not the Catholicism.” 

“TI do not believe we are going to understand each other,” 
replied Caesar; “ what seems a cause to me is an effect for you. 
. . . Besides, we are getting away from the question. To you 
Castro’s moral and intellectual state seems good, does it not?” 

“ Yes.” 

“Well, to me it seems horrifying. Sordid vice, obscure 
adultery; gambling, bullying, usury, hunger. . . . You think it 
ought to keep on being just as it was before I was Deputy for 
the District. Do you not?” 

“ I do.’’ 

“That I have been a disturbance, an enemy to public tran- 
quillity.” 

“ Exactly.” 

“Well, this state of things that you find admirable, seems to 
me bestially fanatical, repugnantly immoral, repulsively vile.” 

“Of course, for you are a pessimist about things as they 
are, like any good revolutionist. You believe that you are 
going to improve life at Castro. You alone?” 


320 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“T, united with others.” 

“And meanwhile you introduce anarchy into the city.” 

“T introduce anarchy! No. I introduce order. I want to 
finish with the anarchy already reigning in Castro and make 
it submit to a thought, to a worthy, noble thought.” 

“ And by what right do you arrogate to yourself the power to 
do this? ” 

“ By the right of being the stronger.” 

“Ah! Good. If you should get to be the weaker, you ought 
not to complain if we should misuse our strength.” 

“Complain! When you have been misusing it for thou- 
sands of years! At this very moment, we do the talking, we 
make the protests, but you people give the orders.” 

“We offset your idiotic behaviour. We stand in the way 
of your utopias. Do you think you are going to solve the 
problem of this earth, and that of Capital? Are you going to 
solve the sexual question? Are you going to institute a society 
without inequality or injustice, as Dr. Ortigosa said in La 
Libertad the other day? To me it seems very difficult.” 

“To me too. . But that is what there is to try for.” 

“And when will you attain so perfect an arrangement, so 
great a harmony, as the Catholic, created in twenty centuries? 
When? ” 

“ We shall attain a different, better harmony.” 

“ Oh, I doubt it.” 

“ Naturally. That is just what the pagans might have said 
to the Christians; and perhaps with reason, because Christian- 
ity, compared to paganism, was a retrogression.”’ 

“That point we cannot discuss,” said Father Lafuerza, get- 
ting up. 

Caesar got up too. 

“In spite of all this, I admire you, because I believe you 
are sincere,” said Father Martin. “But I believe you to be 
dangerous and I should be happy to get you out of Castro.” 

“T feel the same way about you, and I should also be happy 
to get you out of here, as an unwholesome element.” 

“So that we are open, loyal enemies.” 


DECLARATION OF WAR 321 


“Loyal! Pshaw! We are ready to do each other all the 
harm possible.” 

“For my part, yes, and in any way,” announced the priest 
with energy. 

“T, too,”” Caesar answered; and he raised the curtain of the 
office door. 

“ Don’t disturb yourself,” said Father Martin. 

“ Oh, it’s no trouble.” 

“ Regards to Amparito.” 

“Thank you.” 

The friar hesitated about going out, as if he wanted to return 
to the attack. 

“ Afterwards, if you repent . . .” he said. 

“T shall not repent,’ Caesar coldly replied. 

“T will drink peace to you.” 

“Yes, if I submit. I will drink peace to you too, if I sub- 
mit.” 

“You are going to play a dangerous game.” 

“ It will be no less dangerous for you than for me.” 

“You are playing for your head.” 

“Pshaw! We will play for it and win it.” 

The friar bowed, and smiling in a forced manner, left the 
house. 


XIX 
THE FIGHT FOR THE ELECTION 


HE Conservatives at Castro Duro were ready to com- 
mit the greatest outrages and the most arbitrary acts 
so as to win by any methods. 

It was known that a committee consisting of Garcia Padilla, 
Father Martin Lafuerza, and two Conservative councillors had 
gone to the Minister of the Interior to beg that Caesar’s victory 
might be prevented by’ whatsoever means. 

“Tt is necessary that Don Caesar Moncada should not be 
elected for the District,” said Father Martin. “If he is, the 
town will remain subjected to a revolutionary dictatorship. 
All the Conservative classes, the merchants, the religious com- 
munities, fervently hope that Moncada will not be made 
Deputy.” 

The committee of Castrians visited other high personages, 
and they must have attained their object, because the municipal 
government was suspended a few days later, the Workmen’s 
Club closed, the judge transferred, the Civil Guard was rein- 
forced, and a police inspector of the worst antecedents was de- 
tailed to Castro as commissioner of elections. 

The Governor of the Province, a political enemy of Caesar’s, 
was a personal friend of his. 

“For your sake I am ready to lose my future,” he had said 
to him, “‘ but as for your followers, there is nothing left for me 
to do but knock them over the head.” 

La Libertad, Caesar’s newspaper, made a very violent cam- 
paign against Garcia Padilla. Ortigosa succeeded in finding 
out that Padilla had been tried for embezzlement, and he pub- 
lished that fact. 

322 


THE FIGHT FOR THE ELECTION 323 


The Castro News, on its side, insulted Caesar and called him 
a crooked speculator on the exchange, an upstart, and an athe- 
ist. 

The rapidity and violence of the Government’s methods pro- 
duced an effect of fear on lukewarm Liberals; on the other 
hand, it moved the decided ones to show themselves all the more 
courageous and rash. 

Moncada’s party almost immediately took on a revolutionary 
character. The lodge, “ The Microbe,” was at work, and the 
most radical arrangements started there. It suited the Govern- 
ernment and the Conservatives to have the Moncada party take 
this demagogic character. The commissioner had contaminat- 
ing persons come on from the Capital for the purpose of sowing 
discord in the Workmen’s Club. 

These suspicious persons, directed by one they called 
“ Sparkler,” used to gather in the taverns to corrupt the work- 
men and the peasants, carrying on a propaganda that was an- 
archistic in appearance, but in reality anti-liberal. 

“They are all the same,” they used to say; “ Liberals and 
Conservatives are not a bit different.” 

The drunkards and vagabonds were in their glory during 
those days, eating and drinking. Nobody knew for certain 
where the money came from, but everybody. could make certain 
that it flowed profusely. 

At the same time the commissioner had the most prominent 
workmen of the Club arrested and brought suit against them 
on ridiculous accusations. 


THE MEETING 


The Liberals tried to hold a manifestation in protest, but the 
commissioner and the mayor prohibited it. 

The newspaper La Libertad explained what was going on, 
and was reprimanded. 

A meeting was organized at the school; the governor had 
granted permission. 

The school was not~lighted, and Caesar sent a man to the 
Capital for acetylene lamps, which were put up on the walls, 
and which made a detestable smell. The reunion took place 


324 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


at nine at night. Caesar presided, and had San Roman, the 
bookseller, on his right, and Dr. Ortigosa on his left. 

Behind them on a bench were some of the members of the 
Workmen’s Club. 

The audience was composed of the poorest people; the rich 
Liberal element was drawing back; there were day-labourers 
with blankets around their shoulders and mouths, women in 
shawls holding children in their arms. Among the audience 
were the agents provocateurs who doubtless had the intention 
of making a disturbance; but the Republican bookseller ordered 
them thrown out of the place, and, despite their resistance, he 
managed to have it done. 

The chief of police, insolent and contemptuous, took his seat 
at the table with an officer of the Civil Guard i in civilian’s, who 
was there, he said, to take notes. 

San Roman, the bookseller, gave Caesar a paper with the 
names of those who were going to speak. They were many, 
and Caesar didn’t know them. 

The first to whom he gave the floor, in the order. of the 
list, was a lame boy, who came forward on a crutch, and 
began to speak. 

The boy expressed himself with great enthusiasm and ad- 
mirable candour. 

“Who is this youngster?” Caesar asked San Roman. 

“ He is the best pupil in our school. We call him ‘ Limpy.’ 
He comes of a very poor family. He came to the school a 
year ago, knowing nothing, and see him now. He says, and 
I think he is right, that if he keeps on studying, he will be an 
eminent man.’ 

The audience applauded everything “Limpy” said, and 
when he finished they hailed him with shouts and cheers. As 
he went back to his seat, Caesar and San Roman shook his 
hand effusively. 


STAND FAST, FELLOW CITIZENS! 


After “Limpy,” various orators spoke, in divers keys: 
“ Furibis,” ‘Uncle Chinaman,” “ Panza,” San Roman, a 


THE FIGHT FOR THE ELECTION 325 


weaver, a railway employee, and Dr. Ortigosa. The last-named 
let loose, and launched into such violent terms that the audi- 
ence shouted in horrified excitement. Caesar’s speech recom- 
mended firmness, and caused scarcely any reaction. The note 
had been given by “ Limpy,” with his ingenuousness and his 
appealing quality, and by the doctor with the violence of his 
words. 

The next day the Governor’s commissioner gave orders to 
close the school, and Dr. Ortigosa and San Roman were taken 
to jail. 

POLITICAL TRICKS 


It was impossible to carry on a campaign of popular agita- 
tion, and Caesar decided to open a headquarters for propa- 
ganda next door to each voting place. 

Meetings in the villages had been suppressed, because at the 
least alarm, or even without any motive, the chief of police, 
with members of the Civil Guard, went in among the people 
and dispersed them by shoving and by pounding rifles on their 
feet. 

The newspapers couldn’t say anything without being imme- 
diately reported and suspended. 

Caesar sent no telegrams of protest, but he kept at work 
silently. He was thinking of using all weapons, including 
even trickery and bribes. 

Garcia Padilla and the Government agents found this pro- 
ceeding even more dangerous than the former. Caesar offered 
twenty dollars to anybody that would give information of any 
electoral sharp practices which could be proved. The week 
of the election he and his friends did not rest. 

At one of the polls in Carrascal, where Caesar had a major- 
ity, the tile bearing the house-number had been changed by 
night. The real voters had to wait to cast their votes in one 
place, and meanwhile the urn was being filled with ballots for 
the Government candidate at another place. 

In the hamlet of Val de San Gil, another trick was tried; the 
polling place was established in a hay-loft to which one went 


326 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


up by a ladder. While the villagers were waiting for the 
ladder to be set up, the urn was being filled. When the ladder 
was put into place and the voters went up one by one, they 
found that they had all voted already. As the ladder was 
narrow, they had to go up singly, and it was not likely they 
would have ventured to protest. Besides, there were a number 
of ruffians in the place, armed with sticks and pistols, who 
were ready to club or to shoot any one protesting. 

In spite of all, Caesar had the election won, always suppos- 
ing that the Government did not carry things to the limit; but 
at the last moment he learned that more Civil Guards were 
going to come to Castro, and that the Government agents had 
orders to prevent Moncada’s victory by any method. 

In the evening on Saturday, Caesar was told that the com- 
missioner was in a tavern, with others of the police, giving out 
ballots for illegal voters. Caesar went there alone, and entered 
the tavern. 

The commissioner, on seeing him, grew confused. 

“T know what you are doing,” said Caesar. “ Be careful, 
because it may cost you a term in prison.” 

“You are the one that may have to pay by going to prison,” 
replied the inspector. 

“ Just try to arrest me, you poor fool, and I’ll shoot your 
head off!” 

The police inspector jumped up from the table where he 
was seated, and, as he went out, he let one of the ballots fall. 
Caesar looked over the men who were with the police in- 
spector; one of them was “ Sparkler.”” Some days before he 
had come to Moncada’s headquarters to offer to work for him, 
and he was the director of the contaminating persons sent to 
Castro by the Government. 


A CLANDESTINE MEETING 


When he returned to the headquarters, they told him there 
was a meeting in “ Furibis’s” tavern at nine that. night. 
Caesar got there a little later than the time set. The place 
was gloomy, and had some big earthen jars in it. They had 


THE FIGHT FOR THE ELECTION 327 


put a table at the back of this cave, and an acetylene light 
illuminated it. 

Those present formed a semicircle around the table. 

Caesar knocked at the tavern, and they opened the door to 
him; a workman who was speaking delayed his peroration, 
and they waited until Caesar had reached the table and got 
seated. The atmosphere was suffocating. Everything was 
closed so that the Civil Guards would not see the light through 
the windows and suspect that there was a meeting being held 
there. The workmen were, for the most part, masons, weavers, 
brickmakers. There were women there with their little ones 
asleep .in their bosoms. The air one breathed there was horri- 
ble. It looked like a gathering of desperate people. They 
had learned that their arrested comrades had been beaten in 
the prison, and that San Roman and Dr. Ortigosa were in the 
infirmary as a result. 


EULOGY OF VIOLENCE 


The excitement among those present was terrible. ‘“ Limpy” 
was the most strenuous; he was in favour of their all going 
out that moment and storming the jail. 

When they had all spoken, Caesar got up and asked them 
to wait. If he won the election the next day, he promised 
them that the prisoners should be freed immediately; if he did 
not win and the prisoners remained there. . . 

“Then what is to be done?” said a voice. 

‘What is to be done? Iam in favour of violence,” answered 
Caesar; “ burning the jail, setting fire to the whole town; I am 
ready for anything.” 

At that moment he really did think he had been too lenient. 

“'Man’s first duty is to break the law,” he shouted, “ when 
it is a bad law. Everything is due to violence and war. I 
will go to the post of danger this very second, whenever you 
wish. Shall we storm the jail? Let’s go right now.” 

This storming of the jail didn’t seem an easy thing to the 
others. One might try to climb down the hill and surprise 
the prison guards, but it would be difficult. According to 


328 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


“ Furibis,” the best thing would be for ten or twelve of them 
to go out into the street with guns and pistols and shoot right 
and left. 

At this disturbance the Civil Guard would come out, and that 
would be the moment for the others to enter the jail and drag 
the prisoners out into the street. 

Some one else said that it seemed better to him for them to 
approach the Civil Guards’ quarters cautiously, kill the sen- 
tinels, and take possession of the rifles. 

“ Decide,” said Caesar; “ I am ready for anything.” 

Caesar’s attitude made the excited ones grow calmer and 
understand that it was not so easy to storm the jail. 

It was about eleven when the meeting at the tavern ended. 
They had decided to wait and see what would happen the next 
day, and they left the place one by one. 

“We will escort you, Don Caesar,” several of them said, 

“No. What for?” 

“Remember there are people who might attack you. ‘ Driv- 
eller’ Juan is at large in Castro.” 

“ Really?” 

“ Yes.” 

“That bully can’t do anything to me.” 


AT NIGHT 


Caesar went out of the tavern, pulled down his hat, and 
wrapped himself in his cape. He had not brought the motor, 
to avoid being recognized. It was a cloudy night, but still and 
beautiful. 

Before they got out of the town a small boy came up to 
Caesar. 

“* The Cub-Slut’ sent me to tell you to come to her house; 
she wants to speak to you.” 

*T will go tomorrow.” 

“No. You must come now, because what she has to say is 
very important,” shouted the youngster. 

“ Well, I can’t go now.” 

The youngster protested, and Caesar continued on his way. 


THE FIGHT FOR-THE ELECTION 329 


“ Limpy ” and “ Uncle Chinaman” followed him. Caesar 
was walking in the middle of the highway, when, about half 
way home, a man on the run passed him. No doubt he was 
going to give some signal. 

“ Limpy ” and “ Chinaman ” shouted over and over: 

“Don Caesar! Don Caesar!” 

Caesar halted, and “ Chinaman” and “ Limpy” ran up to 
him. 

““What’s going on? ”’ asked Caesar. 

“ They are lying in wait for you,” said “ Limpy.” ‘“ Didn’t 
you see a man go past running?” 

eyes" 

“We are going to stay with you. We will sleep at your 
house,” said ‘‘ Chinaman,” “ and if they attack us, we will de- 
fend ourselves.” 

He showed a pistol which he carried in his sash. 

The three walked on together, and as they passed a little 
grove in front of the palace, a shadow passed by, crawling, and 
fled away. 

“He was there,” said “ Chinaman.” 

They went into the house. Amparito, with the old nurse, 
was praying before a lighted image. 


XX 
CONFIDENCE 


YES, HE IS THE HERO 


HEN he got up, Caesar found a lot of letters and 
notices from his followers all over the district, giv- 
ing him pointers. 

With the help of a manservant who used to go about with 
him, he himself got the motor ready and prepared to visit the 
polls. 

As he got into the car, the youngster of the night before 
appeared with a letter. 

“ From ‘ The Cub-Slut’; please read it right away.” 

** Give it to me; I will read it.” 

“ She told me you were to read it right away.” 

** Yes, man, yes.” 

Caesar took the letter and put it distractedly into his pocket. 

The motor started and Caesar did not read the note. At 
eight in the morning he was on his way to Cidones. The polls 
had been established legally. 

It was raining gently. As he drew near Cidones, the sun 
appeared. The river was turbid and mud-coloured. Thick 
grey fog-clouds were rolling about the plain; when they gathered 
below the hill where Caesar stood, they gave it the appearance 
of an island in the middle of the sea. From the chimneys of 
the town the smoke came out like hanks of spun silver, and 
bells were ringing through this Sunday morning calm. 

Caesar stopped at an inn which was a little outside the 
town. The blacksmith, an old Liberal, came out to receive 
him. The old man had been suffering with rheumatism for 
some while. 

330 


CONFIDENCE 331 


“How goes it?’ Caesar asked him. 

“Very well. I have been to vote for you.” 

“ And your health? ” 

“Now that spring is coming, one begins to get better.” 

“ Yes, that is true,”’ said Caesar; “ I hadn’t noticed that the 
trees are in bloom.” 

“ Oh, yes, they are out. In a little while we shall have good 
weather. It’s a consolation for old folks.” 

Caesar took leave of the blacksmith and got into the motor. 


CAESAR! CAESAR! 


“Yes, spring is in flower,”’ said Caesar. “I will remove all 
the obstacles and men’s strength will come to life, which is 
action. This town, then others, and finally all Spain... . 
May nothing remain hidden or closed up; everything come to 
life, out into the sunlight. I am a strong man; I am a man of 
iron; there are no obstacles for me. The forces of Nature 
will assist me. Caesar! I must be Caesar!” 

The automobile began to move in a straight line toward 
Castro, 

The ground on both sides of the highway fled away. rapidly. 

The automobile lessened its pace at the foot of the hill, and 
began to climb. 

It went in by an old gate in the wall, which was called 
the Cart Gate. 

The street of the same name, a street in the poor suburb, 
was narrow and the houses low; it was paved with cobbles. 
A little farther along several lanes formed a crossroads. 

This was a quarter of brothels and of gipsies who made 
baskets. 

When he reached the crossroads, in the narrowest part there 
was a cart blocking the street. The automobile stopped. 

““What’s the matter? ” asked Caesar, standing up. 

At that moment two shots rang out, and Caesar fell wounded 
into the bottom of the car. The chauffeur saw that the dis- 
charges came from the low windows of a loom, and backing 


332 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


the motor, he returned rapidly, passed out the Cart Gate, at 
risk of running into it, went down to the highway, and drove 
at high speed to Caesar’s house. 

A moment later “ Driveller” Juan and “ Sparkler” came 
out of the loom and disappeared down a lane. The judge who 
went to take depositions learned from the chauffeur that Caesar 
had received a letter as he was getting into the car. He had 
the wounded man’s clothes searched, and they found “ The 
Cub-Slut’s ” letter, in which she warned Caesar of the dan- . 
ger he was in. Fate had kept Caesar from reading it. 


THE RED FLAG 


The news that Caesar was seriously wounded ran through 
the town like a train of powder. 

A movement of terror shook everybody. “ Limpy,” “ Furi- 
bis,” and the other hysterical ones gathered at the tavern and 
agreed to set fire to the monastery of la Pefia. “ Furibis ” had 
arms in his house and divided them among his comrades. A 
woman fastened a red rag to a stick, and they left Castro by 
different paths and met opposite Cidones. 

Nine of them went armed, and various others followed be- 
hind. 

On reaching Cidones, one of the party advanced up the lane 
and saw two pairs of Civil Guards. They discussed what they 
had better do, and the majority were in favour of going into 
Moro’s inn, which was at the entrance to the town, and waiting 
until night. 

They did go in there and told Moro what they had just done. 
The inn-keeper listened with simulated approval, and brought 
them wine. This Moro was not a very commendable party; 
he had been convicted for robbery several times and had a bad 
reputation. 

While the revolutionists were drinking and talking, Moro 
stole out without any one’s noticing, and went to see the chief 
of the Civil Guard, and told him what was going on. 


CONFIDENCE : 333 


“They are armed, then?” asked the chief. 

cé Yes.” 

“ And how many are they? ” 

“Nine with arms.” 

“‘ We are only five. Do you want to do something? 

“ What is it?” 

“ At dusk we will pass by the inn. I will knock. And you 
shall say to them: ‘Here is the chief of the Civil Guard; 
hide your arms.’ They will hide them, and we will arrest 
them.” 

“ Shall I get something for doing this favour? ” asked Moro. 

“ Naturally.” 

“ What will they give me? ” 

“You will see.” 

The ruse worked as they had plotted it; Moro played the 
comedy to perfection. 

On learning that the chief of the Civil Guard wanted to 
come in, the revolutionists, on the landlord’s advice, left their 
arms in the next room. At the same instant the window panes 
burst to bits and the soldiers of the Civil Guard fired three 
charges from close up. Two women and four men fell dead; 
the wounded, among whom was “ Limpy,” were taken to the 
hospital, and only one person was lucky enough to escape. 


FATE 


At the chief headquarters of Moncada’s followers, a strange 
phenomenon was noticed; on the preceding days they had been 
chock full; that night there were not over ten or a dozen men 
frum the Workmen’s Club collected by a table lighted by a 
petroleum lamp. The pharmacist, Camacho, presided. 

The news of the election was worse every minute. At the 
last hour the Padillists, knowing that Moncada was wounded, 
were behaving horribly. In the polls at Villamiel the tellers 
had fled with the blank ballots, and the Conservative boss ar- 
ranged the outcome of the election from his house. 

As the teller from Santa Inés, who was a poor Liberal school- 


334 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


master, was on his way from the hamlet with the papers, six 
men had seized him, had snatched the returns from him, 
changed all the figures, and sent them to the municipal building 
at Castro full of blots. 

They had fired over twenty shots at the teller for Paralejo. 
Many of Moncada’s emissaries, on knowing that Caesar was 
wounded and his campaign going badly, had passed over to the 
other party. 

Only Moncada could have rallied that flight. His most 
faithful gave one another uneasy looks, hoping some one 
would say: “ Come along!” so that they could all have gone. 
Camacho alone kept up the spirits of the meeting. 

At nine o’clock at night the chief of police entered the head- 
quarters, accompanied by two Civil Guards. 

“Close up here, please,” said the inspector. 

“ Why? ” asked the pharmacist. 

“ Because I order you to.” 

“You have no right to order that.” 

“No? Here, get out, everybody, and you are under arrest.” 

Those present took to their heels; the pharmacist went to 
jail to keep San Roman and Ortigosa company, and the Club 
was shut up... . 


The election was won by Padilla. 


XXI 


OUR VENERABLE TRADITIONS! OUR HOLY 
PRINCIPLES! 


HE banquet in honour of Padilla was given at the 

Café del Comercio. All the important persons of the 

town, many of whom had been Caesar’s adherents the 
day before, had gathered to feast the victor. The majority 
gorged enthusiastically, the chief of police distinguishing him- 
self by his hearty applause. A fat lawyer presided, a greasy 
person with a black beard, a typical coarse, dirty, tricky Moor. 
Next to him sat a small attorney, pock-marked, pale of face. 
By dessert one no longer heard anything but cries of “ Hurrah 
for Padilla!” among the smoke of the big cigars they were 
all smoking. 

Then the lawyer with the black beard arose and began to 
orate. 

He spoke slowly and with great solemnity. 

“This meeting shows,” he said in a strong and so.orous 
voice, “ your enthusiasm and your loyalty for the good cause. 
Never, never will we permit outsiders devoid of religion and 
patriotism to upset the existence of our beloved city.” (Ap- 
plause.) ‘‘ We will defend our venerated traditions by all the 
means in our power; we will not permit the hydra of anarchy 
to rise up in Castro; and if it should arise to attack our holy 
principles, we shall crush it under our heels.” (Applause.) 
“When men turn their backs on God, when they preach the 
relaxation of discipline, and licentiousness, when they are not 
willing to acknowledge any authority, divine or human, then 
it is time for decent men to form a bulwark with their breasts, 
for the defence of their traditions. We are, before all else, 

335 


336 CAESAR OR NOTHING 


Catholics and Spaniards; and we will not consent to having 
Anarchists, Masons, sacrilegious persons get the mastery of 
this sacred soil, and wipe out its memories, and spot the most 
holy rights of our mother, the Church.” (Ovation.) 

“ Hurrah for Jesus Christ and His Immaculate Church! ” 
shouted a priest, a bit upset by his wine, in a raucous voice. 

Next, the fat, greasy lawyer paraded all the glories of 
Spain, with their appropriate adjectives: the Cid, Columbus, 
Isabella the Catholic, the Great Captain, Hernan Cortés. . . 
Then a couple of dozen orators spoke, and the meeting ended 
very late at night. 


CASTRO DURO TODAY 


Today Castro Duro has definitely abandoned her intentions 
of living, and return to order, as the weekly Conservative paper 
says; the fountains have dried, the school been closed, the 
little trees in Moncada Park have been pulled up. The people 
emigrate every year by hundreds. Today a mill shuts down, 
tomorrow a house falls in; but Castro Duro continues to live 
with her venerated traditions and her holy principles, not per- 
mitting outsiders devoid of religion and patriotism to disturb 
her existence, not spotting the most holy rights of the Church, 
our mother; enveloped in dust, in dirt, and in filth, asleep in the 
sun, in the midst of her grainless fields. 


XXII 
FINIS GLORIZ MUNDI 


FROM A SOCIETY COLUMN 


be in Castro Duro and not visit Don Caesar Mon- 

cada’s house is a veritable crime of /Jése-art. Seftor 

Moncada, who is a most intelligent person, has gath- 

ered in his aristocratic residence a collection of precious things, 

old pictures, antiques, sculptures of the XV and XVI Cen- 

turies, badges of the Inquisition. Sefior Moncada has made a 

conscientious study of the primitive Castilian painters, and is 
certainly the person most at home in that line. 

His most beautiful wife, who is also a distinguished artist, 
has aided him in forming this collection, and they have both 
gone about by automobile through all the towns in this province 
and the neighbouring ones, collecting everything artistic they 
found. 

At Don Caesar’s house we had the pleasure of greeting the 
learned Franciscan Father Martin, to whom the population of 
Castro Duro owes so much. 

At a halt in the conversation we asked Sefior Moncada: 

“And you, Don Caesar, have no idea of going back into 
politics? ” 

And he answered us, smiling: 

“No, no. What for? I am nothing, nothing.” 


THE END 


337 





UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 


Los Angeles 
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 





RECEIVED 
MAY 16 © 


tte Lp. 
wal? ARG ee 


1 4 1968 


D LD-LRi 


DEC -7'71 
C divi 


QL pabbaninal”S 
QL Sept 27 1476 


ne 3 cae 7 
is) 

D a t 

Rh fn A 


on if > Rap 


¢ 1980 


- 








Form L9—Series 444 





Boreos baec ae 














| LT 
ALL NUMBER sen] vou | PI 
NTT: i TTT | 
i 
> 
On S 
Qa , 
bd Oc nn < 
eS < SWEUNIVERS/2y. a 
| om ¥ S 2 oO Oo 
oO = eg 
zoO < © 
Oo > 7) 
on =) = ® 
ge sls « 
pee cee es ee ee 
vz Sms 
Ll wo 
a 2 
uw = 


‘ 


ah oe 123.45 6.7.8 9 101 12 84 B16 17 18 19 20 2 22-23 24 25 26 27 28 
\ mm 1.30202 ‘ 








—— 
ae 


ye 
— 





